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Budget Hearing Testimony
00:02:00
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In ensuring citizen safety amid rising extreme weather events at 11:30 a.m. Eastern. | |
| You can also watch our live coverage on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-span.org. | ||
| U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked about Israeli strikes on Iran and the deployment of troops during immigration protests. | ||
| Secretary Hegseth testified, along with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Cain, at a budget hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. | ||
| If it's Israel, are you folks in Asia? | ||
| Don't drag us into that war. | ||
| We have the power to prevent another endless war in this country. | ||
| We should not be platforming war criminals. | ||
| We should be attacking the real mass. | ||
| America first. | ||
| Use our troops here to fend us at home. | ||
| Don't go abroad for a prior, genocidal state of Israel. | ||
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Budgets and Military Readiness
00:15:41
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We are in such a dangerous moment. | |
| Please keep us out of the war in Iran. | ||
| Please. | ||
| We've been a war Iran for 50 years. | ||
| Get out of here. | ||
| We were wrong for all the endless wars that we've already been in. | ||
| The American people do not want more endless wars. | ||
| We should not be platforming budgets of trillions of dollars to go to the Pentagon. | ||
| We have people like Senator King. | ||
| My watch says 9:30. | ||
| I want to thank people for being here with enthusiasm. | ||
| But this hearing now convenes to hear the testimony of the presidents concerning the president's fiscal year 2026 budget request. | ||
| I welcome Secretary Hegseth, Chairman Kane, and Acting Comptroller McDonald. | ||
| As we review the past five months, the President and the Department of Defense have much to be proud of. | ||
| The administration has largely succeeded in refocusing the Pentagon on warfighting. | ||
| Our recruitment numbers have dramatically improved. | ||
| That is a very important achievement and one we will continue to celebrate. | ||
| The U.S. military has played a significant supporting role in the President's wholesale success at our southern border. | ||
| He has achieved operational control over the situation, a position the vast majority of Americans support. | ||
| In Operation Rough Rider, the President imposed costs on the Houthis. | ||
| The operation was well executed by our service members, and it appears to have achieved its stated objectives for now. | ||
| Similarly, the president has relentlessly struck al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists. | ||
| Those strikes have helped to open up space for diplomatic breakthroughs in Syria, and they have prevented significant external attacks that could have emanated from Somalia. | ||
| Unfortunately, the Axis of Aggressors is resilient. | ||
| It is hell-bent on challenging American global leadership. | ||
| It is clearer than ever that Vladimir Putin is uninterested in President Trump's and President Zelensky's offers for real peace negotiations. | ||
| The Europeans are heeding the President's call to rearm, but we are in a tenuous period. | ||
| A precipitate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe could undo all that progress. | ||
| In Asia, the Chinese Communist Party continues its campaign of aggression against its neighbors and still displays open ambitions to retake Taiwan. | ||
| Secretary Hegseth recently made this crucial point in an important speech in Shangri-La. | ||
| He said, and I quote, China seeks to become a hegemonic power in Asia, unquote. | ||
| He is right. | ||
| China intends to use military force to achieve Xi Jinping's goals. | ||
| Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Ayatollah is hiding as his regime crumbles. | ||
| He is still refusing to negotiate. | ||
| In short, this is the most dangerous national security moment since World War II. | ||
| Unconstrained, aggressive dictators are on the move. | ||
| And importantly, the character of warfare is rapidly changing. | ||
| That is a dangerous combination. | ||
| We cannot have an American-led golden age of peace and prosperity if we fail to navigate these historic security challenges. | ||
| President Trump is actively working to protect American interests against four main adversaries: Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party, Vladimir Putin's militarized Russia, Kim Jong-un's North Korea, and the Ayatollah's religious fanatics, including his web of terrorists. | ||
| Our Commander-in-Chief deserves a military capable of maintaining deterrence and applying force when necessary to protect U.S. interests, as he has done in Yemen. | ||
| I regret to say that this fiscal year 2026 budget request will not deliver that military. | ||
| When Secretary Hegseth testified before this committee in his confirmation hearing, he made the correct point that spending less than 3% of GDP on defense would be, and I quote, very dangerous. | ||
| Unquote. | ||
| What we have in front of us is an inadequate budget request with precious little detail and no follow-on data about fiscal years 2027, 2028, or 2029. | ||
| We must assume, and in fact, we have heard that OMB intends to maintain defense spending at $893 billion across the four years of this administration. | ||
| So even with a one-time $150 billion reconciliation infusion, this would leave us at 2.65% of GDP by 2029, below 3% of GDP and well below the 5% of GDP that we really, really need. | ||
| Clearly, such a budget plan would allow the military balance to continue, as it has been, to tilt away from the United States and toward Communist China. | ||
| Communist China has increased its budget by over 7% each year for the past decade. | ||
| I know the Secretary fought for a stronger fiscal year 2026 discretionary request, but we need to acknowledge that a flat fiscal year 2026 budget is what OMB delivered. | ||
| I expect we will spend today reviewing the numerous significant holes in this request, gaps that will make it much more difficult for President Trump to equip our service members and for his advisors to develop credible military options. | ||
| Across the budget, we see significant holes, shipbuilding, tactical fighters, basic maintenance money, and more, all insufficient. | ||
| The budget seems to be written as if there are many items in the reconciliation package that simply are not in that bill. | ||
| This is confusing because the text of the reconciliation bill has been public for quite some time. | ||
| Chairman Rogers of the House and I worked closely with the executive branch and members of this committee on the contents of the package. | ||
| This budget threatens to undermine the good work we have done together on that bill and leads me to question whether some officials in the administration plan to ignore congressional intent. | ||
| I believe ignoring congressional intent would be a wrong-headed decision for the United States of America. | ||
| We all work for the American people, and we share largely identical goals when it comes to deterring Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and other threats. | ||
| We need to work much more closely together on investment strategies and actions necessary to rebuild our industrial base. | ||
| The President and the Congress want action on reindustrialization. | ||
| We want to rebuild the arsenal of democracy. | ||
| We need action on industrial base integration, streamlined weapon sales, and cooperation with their allies and partners. | ||
| We agree on fundamentally changing the way the DOD budgets and handles acquisition. | ||
| Now we need to agree on providing the men and women of the Department of Defense with the resources they need to do their jobs. | ||
| We have no time to waste. | ||
| We must commit to continued collaboration now. | ||
| With that, I turn to my friend and colleague, Senator Reid, for his remarks. | ||
| Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, General Kaine, Ms. McDougal, welcome. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, as the Chairman has said, this is a dangerous moment. | ||
| As we speak, missiles are striking cities across Israel and Iran, threatening to ignite a regional war. | ||
| There should be no doubt that for the safety of the United States and the rest of the world, Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. | ||
| However, Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to preemptively launch a war with Iran against the urging of the President threatens the stability of the entire region and the safety of Americans stationed there. | ||
| The Trump administration must take urgent steps to prevent a wider war. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I would ask you to be crystal clear this morning about the administration's posture toward Iran. | ||
| More broadly, Russia continues its bloody assault on Ukraine, unmoved by President Trump's negotiating tactics, and China is threatening our allies in the Indo-Pacific as America once again redirects its attention to the Middle East. | ||
| This is a moment that requires leadership, expertise, and confidence from the Department of Defense. | ||
| And, Mr. Secretary, I am concerned, frankly, that these qualities have been eroded under your leadership. | ||
| In your opening statement, you write, quote, at the Department of Defense, we are sweeping away distractions to focus on our core mission of warfighting, close quote. | ||
| I am a bit skeptical. | ||
| Since you were sworn in, much of the Pentagon has been in disarray. | ||
| You have purged thousands of defense experts, guttered oversight offices, and surrounded yourself with handpicked loyalists. | ||
| You have fired a number of our most accomplished generals and admirals with no explanation, nor replacement. | ||
| Your chief of staff, several top policy advisors, and chief spokesmen have all either resigned or been fired. | ||
| This is a legitimate problem for our national defense. | ||
| Much of the Pentagon seems to have been paralyzed by infighting and stripped of expert staff at a time when we need stability and professionalism. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, you must address this so the rest of the Department can be laser-focused on their missions. | ||
| I am also concerned about your forays into diplomacy. | ||
| The Secretary must be a capable statesman, especially in this dangerous global environment. | ||
| During your first official trip to Europe, you made unfortunate mistakes, including by accidentally conceding America's negotiating leverage to Russia when you announced, quote, we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's 20,014 borders is an unrealistic objective, and quote, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. | ||
| The State Department walked back to your comments, but I worry that they cost us lasting credibility during peace negotiations and with our European allies. | ||
| And, Mr. Secretary, I hope you have learned from these episodes. | ||
| The key to our long-term success against China, Russia, and Iran, and others depend on our ability to equip our forces with the ships, aircraft, and weapons needed to effectively deter them or, if necessary, defeat them. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, you have said that readiness is your top priority, but I am concerned by a number of actions you have taken that seem to distract from readiness. | ||
| For example, you are in the process of firing 8 percent of the defense workforce or 75,000 employees, and you recently gutted the Office of the Director of Operational Tests and Evaluation, which is responsible for testing new weapons and platforms for warfighters. | ||
| You have argued that these cuts were needed to eliminate wasteful spending, but you have simultaneously pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to convert a secondhand Qatari jet to be Air Force One. | ||
| These decisions do not seem to align with readiness. | ||
| Similarly, over the past two weeks, you have ordered 4,700 National Guard troops and Marines into Los Angeles against the will of the governor and mayor. | ||
| These forces are in addition to the 13,000 troops you have deployed to the southern border and separate from the 20,000 National Guard troops requested by DHS to help ICE conduct, quote, interior immigration efforts. | ||
| As a consequence, military units have to cancel their national training center rotations and waste invariable hours and resources performing DHS activities unrelated to their warfighting missions. | ||
| I cannot imagine the faster way to erode military readiness and distract from our ability to deter China, Russia, and Iran. | ||
| You also claim that merit is the only measure of performance under your leadership. | ||
| That is a worthy principle. | ||
| However, you refuse to explain you fired many of our most senior military officers, including the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commander of Cyber Command. | ||
| All of these positions remain unfilled, which weakens our military. | ||
| As importantly, these officers were fired without any justification, indeed without considering merit, which creates the worst possible outcome for a military force. | ||
| Fear throughout the ranks that one should not speak up, should not refuse and illegal order, and should not call out abuse nor question decisions. | ||
| I fear that last week's disturbing display of partisanship at President Trump's event at Fort Bragg is an example of this. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I hope you understand the grave risk of politicizing the military and that you will commit to preventing it. | ||
| Finally, you have pledged to be transparent as Secretary of Defense. | ||
| Yet, to date, you have not held a single press conference at the Pentagon. | ||
| Instead, you have evicted news outlets from the building, overwhelmingly restricted press access, and searched for leaks within your own staff, even threatening general officers with polygraph tests. | ||
| This is not transparency, and it is a disservice to the American people who deserve to know what their military is doing. | ||
| Ultimately, Mr. Secretary, this is a dangerous moment, and you must better demonstrate leadership, expertise, and competence atop the Pentagon. | ||
| You are the ninth Secretary of Defense I have overseen as a member of this committee. | ||
| In fact, this is the 26th time I have questioned the Secretary of Defense during their annual posture hearing. | ||
| I have disagreed with each and every one of them on issues of policy and strategy, some more frequently than others, but I've always been able to work with them openly and earnestly because we shared a common agreement that our national defense supersedes partisanship. | ||
| It's disappointing so far that we have not been able to establish such a relationship with this committee and with your department. | ||
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Globally Integrated Defense Budget
00:12:14
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| Your candid and honest testimony today can go a long way toward making that possible, and I hope we can make that progress. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Reed. | ||
| At this point, we'll ask our witnesses to summarize their testimony in five minutes or shorter. | ||
| We begin with Secretary Higgs. | ||
| Sir, welcome to the committee. | ||
| Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Reed, distinguished members of the committee. | ||
| We appreciate the opportunity to testify in full support of President Trump's proposed fiscal year 26 budget for the Department of Defense. | ||
| I'm honored to testify alongside General Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Bryn McDonald, who's performing the duties of DOD's Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer. | ||
| We are also very proud to represent our warriors and their families. | ||
| And today, as they do every day, they're keeping our country safe. | ||
| They're defending our homeland. | ||
| They're standing up to Communist China. | ||
| They're working hand in glove with our allies and partners. | ||
| They are achieving peace through strength. | ||
| I'd like to start by thanking this committee and Congress for your bipartisan leadership to give our troops a big pay raise in 2025. | ||
| That includes an additional 10 percent raise for our junior enlisted service members E1 to E4. | ||
| Thank you for supporting our initiatives that improve quality of life for our warriors and their families, things that include making historic investments. | ||
| This budget makes historic investments in living conditions, in barracks, and base housing. | ||
| This budget reforms the PCS process to reduce the cost and stress of moves for families. | ||
| We've already seen changes there. | ||
| And we improve the quality of care provided by our defense health care system. | ||
| The best part of my job is meeting and interacting with troops and their families. | ||
| We hear their concerns. | ||
| We know what it's like to face these challenges. | ||
| I've been there recently. | ||
| Each of these initiatives responds to feedback that we've gotten from the force. | ||
| We are listening, and we are always looking for ways to improve quality of life for those who serve. | ||
| Under President Trump's leadership, this budget puts America first and gives our warriors what they need. | ||
| The $961.6 billion budget request, more than $1 trillion for national security, will end four years of chronic underinvestment in our military. | ||
| Now, as is custom with first-year Administration budget releases, additional time was necessary to implement presidential initiatives. | ||
| So, in the last four months, we've moved quickly to reverse course after four years of weakness and mismanagement. | ||
| We found nearly $30 billion in savings across the department. | ||
| And this savings, if you add this savings to our overall budget, we're increasing the DOD budget in 2026 by $143 billion. | ||
| We do that by killing wasteful programs, targeting bureaucratic excess, and redirecting funding from Biden-era priorities to Trump, President Trump's priorities. | ||
| We're working with the Department of Homeland Security to increase border security, to reduce China's malign influence in the Western Hemisphere, to defend freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. | ||
| However, as we would all acknowledge, there's more work to do. | ||
| I've got three core priorities in the department: restore the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence. | ||
| First, we're restoring the warrior ethos. | ||
| President Trump is charged me to focus relentlessly on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness, and that is exactly what we're doing. | ||
| We're setting standards that are high, equal, and unwavering. | ||
| DEI is dead. | ||
| We replaced it with a colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based approach, and the force is responding incredibly. | ||
| Because of President Trump and his America First priorities, recruitment and retention are higher than they've been in decades. | ||
| Historic surge of young Americans who want to join our military. | ||
| Second, we're rebuilding our military. | ||
| 25 years ago, our military was unchallenged, yet we squandered that advantage as China carried out an unprecedented military buildup. | ||
| President Trump is correcting that. | ||
| We're reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisitions process, rapidly fielding emerging technologies and new weapons to meet the challenges of the future. | ||
| This budget invests $25 billion in Golden Dome for America, a down payment on President Trump's priority to defend our homeland. | ||
| It also commits more than $62 billion to modernize and sustain our nuclear forces as we face rising nuclear dangers. | ||
| The budget allocates $3.5 billion for the F-47, the world's first sixth-generation air superiority fighter. | ||
| The budget will revitalize our shipbuilding industrial base with $6 billion in funding in FY26, and that's on top of $47 billion overall for shipbuilding. | ||
| The budget significantly increases funds to buy next-generation technology, including autonomous systems, long-range drones, long-range fires, and hypersonics. | ||
| We will put these capabilities in the hands of our warfighters, ensuring we remain the most lethal force in the world for generations to come. | ||
| And third, we're reestablishing deterrence. | ||
| When an opponent sees our well-equipped and tough-as-nails warriors, they will decide that today is not the day to test U.S. resolve. | ||
| Credible deterrence, it starts at home, and it starts with securing our borders. | ||
| As was mentioned by the chairman, we've achieved, we are working to achieve, 100% operational control of the border. | ||
| Illegal crossings have decreased 99.9%, and it was just reported today that CBP released zero illegals into the U.S. last month, down from 62,000 released into the interior last May. | ||
| The Indo-Pacific is our priority theater, and China is our pacing threat. | ||
| That's why I've traveled twice to that region to visit our forces and meet with our allies and partners. | ||
| As we shift toward the Indo-Pacific, we're looking more to our allies and partners to be force multipliers alongside the United States, and we're making progress in that. | ||
| We applaud those allies who are stepping up, but others need to do more and quickly. | ||
| At the NATO heads of state meeting next week, we expect NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of GDP on defense and defense-related investment, an almost inconceivable accomplishment when President Trump started that project in his first term. | ||
| And with NATO stepping up, we now have a new standard for Allied defense spending that all of our allies around the world, including in Asia, should move to. | ||
| As the President has rightly pointed out, it's only fair that our allies and partners do their part. | ||
| We cannot want their security more than they do. | ||
| The Department of Defense is executing a common sense agenda to achieve peace through strength. | ||
| We know the threats we face are serious, and so our investments are as well. | ||
| And that's what this budget does. | ||
| It matches capabilities to threats. | ||
| We long for peace, so we prepare for war. | ||
| We must overcome decades of neglect and decline. | ||
| We must fortify our position as the world's most lethal fighting force, and we have to act fast because our opponents are. | ||
| This committee is our critical partner. | ||
| We appreciate your leadership and oversight, which is essential. | ||
| And I look forward to accomplishing these goals to achieve peace through strength, support our warriors, protect our citizens and our taxpayers together with you. | ||
| May God grant us the wisdom to see what is right and the courage to do it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| General Kane, do you wish to summarize your testimony? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| I'll try to hit that target. | ||
| Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reid, members of the committee, thank you for being here. | ||
| I'm honored to join Secretary Hegseth and Ms. Bryn McDonald to appear before you today to testify in the President's fiscal year 26 budget. | ||
| Today's hearing reflects our shared commitment to maximize efficiency, accountability of our taxpayers' dollars, and ensuring every expenditure increases the lethality and survivability of your joint force, providing our warfighters with the advanced capabilities and cutting-edge technology required to dominate our adversaries. | ||
| I have deep gratitude for everyone in this room and our shared commitment to help deliver the capability and capacity that the joint force needs. | ||
| That goes to our civilians and their families as we work to deliver peace through overwhelming strength. | ||
| And I want to echo the Secretary's comments regarding our brave men and women serving abroad today. | ||
| It's my responsibility as Chairman to understand, advise, and integrate our joint force to confront and manage the risks worldwide. | ||
| This demands a comprehensive understanding of every domain, across every service, and across every region, across all time horizons. | ||
| It also requires making and advocating for difficult decisions that prioritize the finite taxpayer resources that we have in order to ensure the greatest impact and capability for our warfighters. | ||
| The President's budget enables the Joint Force to defend our great nation from adversaries seeking to do us harm. | ||
| And we're relentless in the pursuit of innovation and technologies that allows us to hopefully deter, but if need be, win on battlefields of the future. | ||
| This budget empowers the joint force to get after the Secretary's three pillars, restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence, and ensures that the joint force is properly armed, globally integrated, and ready to go. | ||
| The President's budget invests in our warfighting capabilities to win, as I said, on the battlefields of the future. | ||
| We must be properly armed with the right capabilities, lethal, modern, reliable, survivable, and at scale, in order to win. | ||
| Victory requires people and platforms that overmatch the enemy's systems and work under the harshest conditions to ensure our decisive edge. | ||
| This budget gives the necessary tools to reinvigorate our national and defense industrial base. | ||
| Our nation is full of incredible talent, and we need to unlock every bit of it. | ||
| This budget also helps us become more globally integrated, which is one of my main jobs. | ||
| We are in the joint force relationship entrepreneurs, working together with the military, but also with our allies and partners, the interagency and industry to make sure that we're connected before crisis or conflict. | ||
| And this budget helps us to integrate that combat capability as our commanders and leaders consider actions and activities, not at the point that we're in a crisis somewhere. | ||
| Finally, the President's budget reflects our mandate to stay ready, always on the account, anticipating the next fight and making sure that everyone is ready to go. | ||
| But the most important component is our people. | ||
| The budget makes meaningful investments in our service members and their families, improving quality of life for housing, medical care, and the ever-important moving process. | ||
| As our most precious asset, we have to deliver for our people. | ||
| I want to highlight one of them today. | ||
| Sitting behind me is Colonel Matt Jamant. | ||
| Many folks know Matt up on the Hill today. | ||
| It's probably his last hearing in uniform, which after 31 years, he graduates from service later this year. | ||
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Committee Commitment
00:15:18
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| He's been like a pterodactyl for the Joint Force, always delivering and advocating for. | ||
| Pterodactyls are very, very old. | ||
| Yes, sir, I know. | ||
| You'll note his. | ||
| You raise your hand, Colonel. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Thank you for your service. | ||
| It's an honor every day to serve alongside some of the extraordinary warriors and civilian teammates that our nation has to offer. | ||
| I assure this committee that the Joint Force remains committed and capable, and we're grateful for your continued support. | ||
| I want to also highlight the leaders that will come before this committee in the coming days, which will be carefully considered by each of you for the general and flag officer assignments. | ||
| They are all extraordinary. | ||
| I am mindful and mindful and grateful for those that are currently deployed right now. | ||
| They are on my mind and in my heart, and I know the secretaries as well. | ||
| And I continue to hold a special remembrance for our fallen and the families of our fallen who show us what right looks like. | ||
| Thank you for your time, and with that, I look forward to your questions. | ||
| Very skillful use of time, General. | ||
| And Ms. McDonald, we will not require an opening statement from you. | ||
| Thank you for being available for questions today. | ||
| And now we move to rounds of five-minute questions. | ||
| And let me say we expect full attendance today, and I expect all members will want to ask questions. | ||
| I've tried to be very skillful sometimes in my membership on this committee to ask a very involved question with about 20 seconds to go in my five minutes. | ||
| We will not be using that practice today or we'll be here in the wee hours of the early evening. | ||
| So at this point, let me begin by asking Secretary Hegseth about congressional intent. | ||
| We worry about the explicit choices that the Congress has made and that have been enacted into law by the President in the fiscal year 2026 budget. | ||
| The decision Came to us surprisingly to zero out destroyers, even though Congress intended for reconciliation to give the industrial base stability with a third DDG in fiscal years 2027 and in 2029. | ||
| I've asked this of every nominee from the Department who has come before us about honoring congressional intent. | ||
| We will put funds in the reconciliation bill, working with the House and working with the administration to get the signature on the bill. | ||
| And we will make clear alongside that the specific congressional intent. | ||
| I've asked this of every official, and I will ask you as well, Mr. Secretary, do you commit to following congressional intent unequivocally on reconciliation? | ||
| Well, thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Yes, our team looks forward to working with this committee both through the budget process and reconciliation and would acknowledge just as a starting point of the conversation that we are looking at two bills and one budget at the Defense Department. | ||
| So as we have discussions about allocation, we may sometimes be talking about different numbers because of that, but from our perspective, we built a budget with tied to $960 billion. | ||
| Are you qualifying your explicit yes? | ||
| Because we have not had that from any of the other witnesses that have come before us. | ||
| If our congressional intent alongside the numbers in reconciliation is explicitly expressed, do you commit to following congressional intent unequivocally in reconciliation? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| We just wanted to clarify the entirety of the budget from our perspective. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Now, you said once before that, and I quoted in my opening statement, Mr. Secretary, that going below 3 percent of GDP would be very dangerous. | ||
| That was your testimony in January. | ||
| Of course, you know well that we are asking our allies in Europe and NATO to go to 5 percent, and it has been the intention of most of us on the committee that the United States lead by example and, in fact, follow the peace-through strength example of President Reagan and his administration getting to 5 percent. | ||
| I understand that if you put reconciliation and the budget request together for this year, it exceeds 3 percent. | ||
| But if we go back to that same baseline for the next three years after that, we will be under 3 percent. | ||
| We intend to fix that. | ||
| But do you agree that, do you still agree that going below 3 percent would be a quote, very dangerous, unquote choice? | ||
| Yes, sir, and so does the President of the United States, which is why this budget increases from FY25 13 percent, puts us at 3.5 percent of GDP on defense, and we feel like is a generational increase in defense capabilities. | ||
| And when you add that alongside the $30 billion we have already found in savings and repurposed, that's where I get to the $143 billion in additional spending in defense, which is mentioned, Mr. Secretary, that in future years it would be very dangerous to go below that 3 percent. | ||
| As I said in my remarks, we are going to match our budget to threats. | ||
| And so, yes, in the future, we anticipate threats like we have today, and so I would anticipate a robust budget in the future. | ||
| Would you please be kind enough to answer my question? | ||
| Would going below 3 percent in future fiscal years be, quote, very dangerous, unquote, as you said in your statement in January? | ||
| Yes, sir, and I believe the President of the United States definitely feels the same way. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Senator Reed. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And I yield back five seconds. | ||
| I'll take those five seconds. | ||
| Oh, no, sir. | ||
| No, that's not the way it works. | ||
| First, let me apologize to Ms. McDonald, who I said was Ms. McDougall. | ||
| You are Irish, right? | ||
| My husband is, yes, sir. | ||
| Well, that's good enough. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You were Scotch for a few minutes. | ||
| But I apologize, ma'am. | ||
| And, Ms. Secretary, you have fired a number of general and flag officers, and you clearly have the authority to do that, but there was no cause given. | ||
| And it's also deeply concerning. | ||
| It's taking a long time to appoint successors. | ||
| I understand that today you announced that the nominee for CNO will be Admiral Darrell Cordell. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Well, we still have many of these positions open, including U.S. Cyber Command, which is absolutely critical. | ||
| Do you believe that these lack of nominated leaders are affecting our warfighting abilities? | ||
| Sir, I believe we all serve at the pleasure of the President. | ||
| And in every single position, we are looking for the right man or woman to fill that role to execute on behalf of the missions of this department, and we are doing it expeditiously in every case. | ||
| Again, do you have any anticipation of when we'll receive the nominee for Cyber Command? | ||
| Sir, as I mentioned before, we have a very capable deputy at Cyber Command who has taken the helm. | ||
| So it's not as if it's without leadership, very much so. | ||
| But we are, as recently as yesterday, had a high-level discussion of exactly what that will be. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, in your opening statement, you stated, at the Department of Defense, we are sweeping away distraction to focus on our core mission of warfighting. | ||
| However, since your confirmation, your office has been consumed by high turnover and disarray. | ||
| At least three senior aides were fired and subsequently investigated for leaks, alleged leaks to the press. | ||
| Your first chief of staff has since left his position, and to the best of my knowledge, that position is vacant. | ||
| The Inspector General is reviewing your use of Signal app to send sensitive information pertaining to military operations in Yemen, not only to senior government officials, but to your wife, your brother, and your personal lawyer. | ||
| Finally, according to press reports, you have threatened polygraph tests against senior members of the military. | ||
| As I said in my opening statement, this is a dangerous world. | ||
| You know that. | ||
| And this turmoil in your own office is not contributing, I think, to the clarity and thoughtfulness and decisiveness necessary. | ||
| Sir, I would just say the media loves sensational headlines that are not connected at all to reality. | ||
| If you look at the execution of our office and what we've done on the President's priorities, I'm very proud of what we've been able to do in 140 days. | ||
| And when you move fast to reestablish deterrence and restore a warrior ethos and rebuild the military, it's going to come with some changes. | ||
| But when you look at the leadership structure, both in uniform and on the civilian side of the Defense Department, it's as strong and capable as it's ever been. | ||
| And I would contrast it with the chaos of the world under the previous administration, the debacle in Afghanistan, war unleashed in Ukraine, what happened on October 7th, that was a view of weakness and chaos unleashed by the Biden administration under the previous Defense Secretary. | ||
| So if a few changes have to be made in the first portion of my term in order to get it right, I think that's pretty acceptable to establish deterrence and rebuild our military and restore the warrior ethos. | ||
| Well, Mr. Secretary, you can cite those examples. | ||
| History, I might have a different perspective. | ||
| As I understand it, the direction to leave Afghanistan was an agreement with President Trump in Doha, which left our forces in a very precarious position since they were there for a year and they had to come out. | ||
| And Taliban knew that, and they were going after them. | ||
| But let me move on to another issue, which is. | ||
| 30 seconds. | ||
| 35. | ||
| We have had detainees in Guantanamo, and we have used military flights to get them there. | ||
| The problem, I think, is that some of these military flights have not contained DHS agents on it. | ||
| And so, in effect, the military becomes not just the custodial agents, they're also the control agents. | ||
| And that would seem to me a violation of military procedures. | ||
| Is that practice continuing? | ||
| Senator, every aspect of that mission is in coordination with DHS and with DHS officials. | ||
| So there are no flights with airmen only on board? | ||
| Not that I'm aware of, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Reed. | ||
| Senator Fisher. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Secretary General, Ms. McDonald, welcome. | ||
| I serve on both the Armed Services and the Appropriations Committees, and every year we legislate annual authorization and appropriation bills that provide the policies and the funding for the Department. | ||
| While I'm confident we will do so again this year, the Administration has made this process more difficult by delaying the delivery of budget materials to Congress. | ||
| Mr. Secretary and General Kaine, I've appreciated our previous discussions about the need to modernize our nuclear triad and to provide the President with additional options for regional nuclear deterrence. | ||
| And to achieve this, we must have sustained and predictable funding within the Department's base budget. | ||
| I'm concerned that the Department's fiscal year 26 request relies too heavily on reconciliation for some of our nuclear programs. | ||
| For example, the reconciliation text includes funding for Sentinel. | ||
| That is meant to accelerate and reduce risk in the program over the next several years. | ||
| It is not meant to fill a self-imposed gap in funding in a single fiscal year created by short-changing ICBMs in the base budget. | ||
| I understand using reconciliation funding is relatively new to the department, but I expect us to work together throughout this cycle so that we can assure that funds are used as intended and that the programs are adequately funded within that base budget. | ||
| General Kane, do you agree that nuclear modernization programs should be prioritized both to keep pace with the threats and to ensure that the President has a full array of options for nuclear deterrence? | ||
| I do, Senator, and appreciate your leadership on ensuring that we've got the tools that we need to deliver for the triad of the future. | ||
| Secretary Hague Seth, although progress has been made the last several years, I continue to be concerned about the ability of our defense industrial base to produce munitions at an adequate scale to support our warfighters in these modern conflicts that we have. | ||
| And now that you have been sworn in and had time to review the current state of our industrial base, what more should the Department be doing to increase munitions production? | ||
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Reviewing AUKUS: Presidential Priority
00:11:14
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| And how does this budget request support these objectives? | ||
| Senator, it's a great question. | ||
| We should be doing everything we can, which is precisely what we are doing at the very highest levels, from myself to the Deputy Secretary of Defense with industry. | ||
| This budget is a 45% increase in the defense industrial base. | ||
| It invests in critical munitions procurement. | ||
| It invests in defense supply chains, in resilience and supply chains, in increased competition and capabilities of outside companies to get into the business of providing critical munitions. | ||
| So across the board, we're finding and hiring innovators to move as quickly as possible, cutting through the bureaucracy of the red tape to deliver those systems in a world that needs them now more than ever. | ||
| Could you get back to me on timelines that you have set for each of those areas that you mentioned and obviously the funding that's going towards them, but I'd be interested in what you're setting for yourself for goals for the timelines in getting that achieved? | ||
| Yes, ma'am, we have those and we will get those to you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And General Kane, do you assess that the total munitions requirement is currently aligned with the magnitude of the threats that this country faces? | ||
| Or should the Department review its stockpile requirements to ensure that we are fully prepared for these modern conflicts? | ||
| Senator, we're always looking at the lessons learned of past conflicts to include the most recent ones around the world and taking those and applying those to what the future of war might look like. | ||
| So we're always evolving and considering what the mix of munitions that we need for the joint force in order to deliver overwhelming strength. | ||
| And I would be remiss if I didn't bring up spectrum. | ||
| So as we look towards the Golden Dome and the importance of that over the next several weeks, I hope we can see some more details on that because we can't shoot what we don't see. | ||
| And I think it's important that all of us here, as well as the public, understand the importance of the spectrum that the Department has in order to reach that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Fisher, for that important and correct observation. | ||
| Senator Shaheen. | ||
| Thank you all very much for being here. | ||
| News reports this morning suggest that the President is actively considering intervening in the situation in the Middle East. | ||
| I understand that we have 40,000 troops deployed in the region, many of whom are in range of Iranian missiles. | ||
| And it's being reported that the President is being asked to consider providing the bunker buster bomb that is required to be carried only by the B-2 bomber and would require a U.S. pilot. | ||
| That raises real concerns about what retaliation might mean for the safety and stability of the entire region and our troops and Americans who are in the region. | ||
| So can you tell us, Mr. Secretary, are you considering military action that would bring us into active hostilities and whether you expect a decision to be made on that any time in the next few days? | ||
| Just bearing in mind, and you can stop the clock, we will be going into a classified portion of the hearing later on. | ||
| But proceed, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| I understand that, Mr. Chairman, but I think this is a question that's very important for the American public to hear. | ||
| I just wanted to make it clear that there would be an opportunity to get very deep into that. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Senator, I agree with the Chairman. | ||
| Most of what I can or should say would be reserved for a classified setting. | ||
| I would say the President, obviously, any decisions on this matter are at the Presidential level. | ||
| He has communicated very clearly for quite some time. | ||
| I do understand that, Mr. Secretary, but my question for you is whether you have been asked actively to provide options for the President regarding a strike in the Middle East. | ||
| If I had or I had not, I wouldn't disclose that in this forum, Senator. | ||
| My job, our job, Chairman and I, at all times, is to make sure the President has options and is informed of what those options might be and what the ramifications of those options are. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| You mentioned the troops in the region with maximum force protection at all times is being maintained. | ||
| I would hope that as soon as consideration about action is determined, that the public will be informed about that. | ||
| Six of us on this committee just returned from the largest air show in the world. | ||
| It was very impressive to see the innovation and technology from our industry on aerospace. | ||
| And one of the concerns that I heard from many of the companies that I talked to was about the potential to partner with our allies and partners for innovation, for co-production. | ||
| And one concern I heard was about the proposed review of the AUKUS agreement. | ||
| That's after the Australian government has already contributed half a billion dollars to our submarine industrial base, and American and U.K. shipbuilders have made capital investments to support the increased deban. | ||
| So do you disagree with the position that President Trump has taken about AUKUS, that we should move forward? | ||
| And what is the review expected to produce? | ||
| Well, Senator, I think reviews are always prudent, but those reviews actually come after conversations I've had with the Minister of Defense, Healy, in the U.K. and Marles in Australia. | ||
| Long personal conversations about the status of this arrangement, both aspects of it. | ||
| So we are reviewing it because that's what the Defense Department ought to make sure it fits the priorities of the President and that our Defense and Shipbuilding Industrial Base can support, ensure that we're clear on all sides of that, on either pillar. | ||
| And then on pillar two, identifying specifically the ways we can work together most meaningfully to co-produce with our industrial base munitions or other capabilities that would be most applicable to the threats we face. | ||
| But do you agree that it's important to increase the capability of our nuclear deterrent in the Indo-Pacific and that AUKUS is one way to do that? | ||
| I do. | ||
| And working through AUKUS as a possible avenue for that is a good thing. | ||
| Last week, Mr. Secretary, during the SACD appropriations hearing, you reaffirmed the need for an exemption for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to your hiring freeze. | ||
| Senator Collins asked you a very relevant question on that. | ||
| And since Senator King and I share that shipyard, I'd like to ask you again, because we have not yet heard anything from you or from the Office of Personnel Management about how they're responding to this. | ||
| DOD has told us that the Office of Personnel Management needs to review every single new hire one by one at a time when we need 550 people every year just to keep up with the Navy's demand for maintenance and on its nuclear submarines. | ||
| So will you commit to talking to OPM on this issue? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Shaheen. | ||
| Senator Cotton. | ||
| Welcome, everyone. | ||
| Thank you for your testimony and more importantly your service. | ||
| Secretary Hegseff, the President at a press gaggle just now at the White House said of strikes against Iran, Senator Shaheen's question, I may do it, I may not do it. | ||
| I mean nobody knows what I'm going to do. | ||
| You had referred to these questions as presidential level decision, is that right? | ||
| And I think that's always true. | ||
| Advisors advise and presidents decide. | ||
| But it's your job to have contingency plans for everything that the president may or may not decide. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| That is correct. | ||
| And no one should be surprised or scandalized that the Pentagon has lots and lots of contingency plans. | ||
| Senator, our job is to have contingency plans. | ||
| It's like in Armageddon, Billy Bob Thornton's character, Truman. | ||
| Speaking of NASA, it could have been speaking of the Pentagon. | ||
| You're geniuses. | ||
| You're just thinking stuff up, and you've got people in another room backing them up. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
| We plan. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And although it's true in every part of the government, it's probably no more true in your department that it's a presidential-level decision. | ||
| This is the President's core constitutional responsibilities as the Commander-in-Chief. | ||
| I mean, it's important what he does with labor and HUD and the rest, but as the Commander-in-Chief, it's the Important role he has, and therefore, you're the department where you take the most direct guidance from the president. | ||
| Everyone in the department has to support the president's decisions once those decisions are made, correct? | ||
| Correct, Senator. | ||
| As I've said, there's only one person that was elected president of the United States. | ||
| And the American people elected him to make these decisions on their behalf. | ||
| And if and when those decisions are made, the department is prepared to execute. | ||
| And I know that you welcome and have robust policy debates in the department, and no doubt you have very differing views on many questions, whether it's what to do with Iran or what kind of aircraft or ships we need to build or what the quality of commissaries are on our basis. | ||
| And that's welcome. | ||
| You need that kind of robust debate to make the right recommendations. | ||
| But once the president's decision has been made on any question, that's final, right? | ||
| That's your standard. | ||
| The president welcomes, I've watched it in real time, views on all issues from all aspects. | ||
| But yes, once those have been represented, intelligence represented, options represented, upsides, downsides, threats, of course, when the president makes a call as the commander-in-chief, we will execute. | ||
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Redesignating Army Base Names
00:02:49
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| Well, thank you. | ||
| Because I know there was some controversy earlier this year inside the department, and not everyone seemed to be on the same page that you and the president are after presidential decisions had been made, and you had to make some tough decisions there. | ||
| And I commend you for those decisions. | ||
| I think you did the right thing. | ||
| You have to make sure that everyone stays on the same page and everyone supports presidential decisions. | ||
| One decision I also want to call out, since we haven't spoken about it here, and I'm not sure we will, and I want to commend you for as well and commend your team, is the redesignation of base names for Army bases. | ||
| In the summer of 2020, as a Jacobin fever swept the country during the BLM riots, it was decided to rename several Army bases. | ||
| To be honest with you, I think most soldiers serving those bases didn't even know who they were named after. | ||
| They just had fond recollections for decades of their time at Fort Benning or Fort Bragg or other places. | ||
| And I think now you've completed the effort to redesignate those names, those bases, to the names that so many generations of soldiers served at for new American heroes. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
| Yes, all of the previous names for the U.S. Army installations have been returned. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| I think that was an inspired approach. | ||
| It complies with the law. | ||
| It teaches a new generation of soldiers about those who went before them. | ||
| And I hope the matter is settled. | ||
| I especially want to commend you for Fort Gordon, named after Gary Gordon, one of two Delta operators along with Randy Schugert, who willingly laid down their life in the Battle of Mogadishu to protect their buddies, not even in the battle at the time and against commanders' repeated wishes until they pestered the commanders finally to let them get on the ground and protect those soldiers on the ground and laid down their life. | ||
| I think that was an inspired choice. | ||
| One final question: You'd said that everything needs to be on the table to address our munitions crisis. | ||
| We all agree on this committee. | ||
| We all have been working hard for many years on that. | ||
| Private industry is very important, but you have your own organic industrial base. | ||
| Ammunition plants, arsenals, depots, that's included in everything, right? | ||
| That we need to look at every possible source to address every potential choke point in our munition supply chain. | ||
| Every possible source. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| General Kane, you agree with that, I presume, that our organic industrial base, especially the arsenals and ammunition plants and depots, are a solution to this problem, not a part of the problem or a relic of the past. | ||
| I do, sir, and I'm aware of your letter to the Army on that matter, which I know they're looking at. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much, Senator Cotton. | ||
| Senator Gillibrand. | ||
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Secretary Hegseth, this committee has had many hearings about the future of warfare and making sure that we have the complement of warfighters that we need to win any future wars and not focus on how we could have done better in the previous war. | |
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Cyber Defense Concerns
00:15:07
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One of the areas where I have deep concern is cyber defense in this country. | |
| I'm concerned about cyber warfare. | ||
| I'm concerned about cyber terrorism. | ||
| I'm also concerned about the deployment of UAS, as we've seen being extremely powerful in the war in Ukraine. | ||
| We've seen what Iran has done. | ||
| So I'm concerned about our posture with regard to UAS and a defensive posture with regard to UAS attacks. | ||
| I'm very concerned about what happened over many of our military sites. | ||
| Drone configurations hovering for weeks without response. | ||
| No authorities to be able to track where those drones came from by the DOD to assess: are they Iranian? | ||
| Are they Chinese? | ||
| Are they Russian? | ||
| Are they on spy missions? | ||
| What is their purpose? | ||
| Inadequate authorities, inadequate defenses, inadequate technology. | ||
| The Langley incursion is incomprehensible. | ||
| On top of that, I'm very concerned that we are not investing in our cyber professionals, that we don't have enough cyber offense, enough cyber defense. | ||
| We have currently 30,000 open cyber positions within the DOD. | ||
| So I'd like to hear from you: what's your plan to have cyber defense and cyber warriors at the appropriate complement? | ||
| And number two, what is your plan to create the authorities that you need for UAS defense and to have the inadequate response of this is someone else's job no longer come out of our leaders? | ||
| Well, Senator, thank you for the question. | ||
| You're right over the target. | ||
| Cyber needs to be a part of every single way that we plan and look at the world. | ||
| That gray zone part of conflict, and we can't cede that terrain in any way to our adversaries. | ||
| And so it is, you'll see the resources in this budget that invest in that. | ||
| You'll see it fully integrated into planning and capabilities. | ||
| And what we're looking for in the next cybercom and what we're looking for there, our Deputy Secretary of Defense is leading a charge to make sure it fits precisely what the world needs today. | ||
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unidentified
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So we have a program that this committee supported in the last two NDAAs, which is a cyber academy to create a pipeline of young people who do cyber for service. | |
| So they get a state-of-the-art cyber education at over 600 schools around the country, and then they dedicate the number of years they had education to the Department of Defense or the intelligence community. | ||
| And right now, it is not being funded. | ||
| And right now, because of the hiring freeze, these kids who have completed their degree under the Cyber Service Academy actually can't get a job at the DOD or the intelligence community. | ||
| And they're either going to have to no longer serve, which was part of the program, or get employed somewhere else, but we lose them. | ||
| So what are you doing to unplug this problem of not hiring these cyber professionals immediately because they are part of the cyber service program? | ||
| And your budget does not show that you are planning to fill 100 cyber positions for these young people who want to serve in the IC community or in the IC or in the Department of Defense. | ||
| We'll review that aspect of the hiring freeze in the cyber academy. | ||
| We want those positions filled. | ||
| We're fully committed to it. | ||
| And then on counter-UAS, which you mentioned, it is, I mean, it is a reality of the modern battlefield, whether it's in Ukraine or elsewhere, that we have to fully account for and address as aggressively as possible. | ||
| And I can, you have my assurances at the highest levels, we are putting our best people in charge of ensuring we have counter-UAS systems that can match the threats of the future. | ||
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I would like you to prepare for this committee two letters in response to these questions. | |
| One, what are you going to do to fill the hundred, excuse me, the thousand slots for the cyber academy? | ||
| And how are you going to get this hiring freeze taken care of? | ||
| And two, what is your plan for increased authorities, increased investment, appropriate review of UAS that hover over our military and nuclear sites? | ||
| So this committee has a fulsome response from your whole team about how you will address these two problems. | ||
| We will get that to you, Senator. | ||
| And authorities, you are right, is a huge issue on counterdefining. | ||
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unidentified
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That's something Senator Cotton and I are committed to passing. | |
| We both serve on intelligence and armed services, and so we share the urgency on this issue. | ||
| And so, Mr. Secretary, you'll submit those letters for the record. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. | ||
| Senator Rounds. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| To all of you, first of all, thank you for your service to our country. | ||
| I have heard now from 25 senior department officials, including every service chief and eight combatant commanders, that vacating the 3.1 to 3.45 gigahertz and the 7 to 8 gigahertz bands of the spectrum would have significantly negative consequences for our warfighting capabilities. | ||
| Being forced to share these bands with commercial interests in a non-optimal way would have the same impact. | ||
| General Kane, does the Joint Force have capabilities operating on the 3.1 to 3.45 band and the 7 to 8 bands of the spectrum which would be used in a conflict with China? | ||
| We do, Senator, yes. | ||
| And would those capabilities be negatively impacted if the Department of Defense were forced to share those bands with commercial users in a non-optimal manner? | ||
| Senator, I think the key is non-optimal. | ||
| I know there's some work going on around dynamic sharing that would minimize to an acceptable level the ability to frequency hop in and out of those particular bands that would not adversely impact the joint force. | ||
| But as of today, there is no way to make it happen. | ||
| Not today, as you know, Senator, and I appreciate your leadership on this, but there's a lot of work going on in that space, sir. | ||
| I think we agree that the economic security is national security and that we need to move forward in the next gen with regard to our communications capabilities. | ||
| But as it pertains to spectrum auction authority, how do you view a spectrum auction process that bases decisions solely on economic considerations? | ||
| Well, as you said, Senator, economic security is national security. | ||
| You know, those are policy decisions. | ||
| My job as the chairman is to provide the military advice to our policymakers and let them make that decision. | ||
| And this firmly sits in that policy space. | ||
| And so rather than put myself sideways out of my swim lane, I'll leave it to them to decide. | ||
| But in your professional military opinion, the areas between 3.1 to 3.45 and the 7 to 8 band are critical to our national defense. | ||
| 3.1 to 345, no doubt. | ||
| Lower end of the 7, there's some, I think, some discussion. | ||
| 7-4 to 8-4 is an area that I'd prefer us to hang on to, Mr. Thank you. | ||
| And Secretary Hagseth, I know that you've told me that you would be willing to go to the mat to protect these critical capabilities. | ||
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I think that is critical. | |
| In fact, these bands are essential to building Golden Dome, which will require even more radars and military communications infrastructure than we currently have, particularly around population centers and defense sites as we see in Israel today. | ||
| Would you agree with that today, sir? | ||
| Yes, Senator. | ||
| I concur with the Chairman's characterization, and I would just say at no time in conversations around spectrum has DOD's equity never been, it's always been fully represented in those conversations to ensure we protect what we need to protect. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| General Kane, what is your assessment of the operational and strategic benefits of maintaining the dual hat leadership arrangement between U.S. Cyber Command and National Security Agency, the NSA, particularly in terms of intelligence integration, speed of action, and mission success in contested environments? | ||
| Senator, I can argue both sides of that one. | ||
| And, you know, mindful that that's a policy discussion I think that either will go on soon or has been going on. | ||
| And I'd prefer to leave that to the policymakers. | ||
| I think the key is both organizations are critically important. | ||
| And whether it's a single commander or two leaders that collaborate with no distance between them, we achieve the same end state. | ||
| Would it be fair to say that the dual hat prevents stovepipes in the cyber domain today? | ||
| Senator, there are stovepipes in all kinds of domains today, so I can't assure you that it would prevent them. | ||
| What I do hope is that whatever path we take, we select leaders who are committed to integrating and knocking down those stovepipes, whether it's a single leader or two leaders. | ||
| That's what the nation needs. | ||
| We have been successful in making significant exchanges in utilizing assets for both the NSA and for cyber command so far. | ||
| Secretary Hagseth, are you committed to maintaining the dual hat relationship that has significantly benefited our national security to date? | ||
| Senator, as of right now, we are maintaining the status quo, but it is something we reserve the right to review. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Rand. | ||
| Senator Blumenthal. | ||
| Thanks, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Secretary Hagseth, you've been asked about options for the use of force abroad. | ||
| I want to ask about the use of our military at home. | ||
| I have been deeply disturbed and alarmed by the use of active duty troops, Marines, in Los Angeles, and President Trump has made clear his intention to continue to use the military to suppress dissent and likely inflame tensions there and elsewhere, all under the guise of enforcing the law. | ||
| What he's doing may well be illegal. | ||
| I want to ask you about contingency plans for the use of active duty military in other cities. | ||
| Do you have such contingency plans? | ||
| Senator, I would just say we share the President's view that, as you characterize it, we are deeply disturbed and alarmed that ICE officers are being attacked while doing their job in any city in America. | ||
| And so allowing National Guards to be able to do that. | ||
| We can be alarmed by these attacks on ICE officers, yes, but we ought to be equally alarmed by the illegal use of active duty Marines or other military. | ||
| I take it from your answer that you do have contingency plans for the use of military in other cities. | ||
| We have never and will not illegally deploy troops. | ||
| All have been under existing well-established authorities to find troops to support enforcement officers. | ||
| So far, there's been no legal justification. | ||
| It's been challenged successfully. | ||
| I think that it will prevail. | ||
| Those challenges will prevail in the courts. | ||
| And I want to ask you right now to submit to this panel those contingency plans for the use of active duty military in other cities. | ||
| I want to move on to another area of questioning. | ||
| The chairman has said that you have submitted precious little detail, to quote him, precious little detail about the budget. | ||
| I think there is no detail. | ||
| This budget is literally a rough outline with short-sighted shortfalls. | ||
| For example, the shortfall on the Columbia class, $2 billion, only about $1 billion for Virginia-class. | ||
| There is virtually no outline or specificity as to how you are going to provide drones to defend and also engage in offensive outline and maneuvers. | ||
| The nature of warfare is changing right before our eyes in real time. | ||
| Unmanned aerial and undersea warfare is happening in Ukraine and elsewhere. | ||
| And I think that you owe this committee and the American public more specificity in that budget because we will be at risk, we are at risk right now, in the Middle East. | ||
| And I want to know whether we have contingency plans to protect our U.S. personnel in the region from the kind of swarm of drones that have proved devastating already to three of our service people in the Middle East on a base in Jordan. | ||
| Do you have such plans to protect against drones there? | ||
| Senator, we work hand in glove with the Joint Staff and CENTCOM and every COCOM, especially right now, to ensure everything at our disposal is available to ensure maximum force protection against any contingency, including the one you described, sir. | ||
| Well, I have no assurance that we have the capacity to safeguard against the swarm of small, lightweight, slow-moving drones that are, in my view, our major vulnerability. | ||
| And right now, if we engage in the Iran conflict, it would put us and U.S. personnel at risk there. | ||
| Let me ask you about Ukraine. | ||
| I have just returned from my seventh trip to Ukraine. | ||
| I am the advocate, chief sponsor with Senator Graham in the Russia sanctions bill. | ||
| You said that the United States in the and the ranking member cited it that we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective and will only prolong the war. | ||
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Ukraine Aid Delay
00:01:40
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| My question to you is: when will you release the PDA $4 billion in equipment that Ukraine desperately needs? | ||
| It is sitting there. | ||
| Ukraine deserves it. | ||
| When will it be released? | ||
| We are aware of PDA 75, and that is a decision we can make in the future. | ||
| My time has expired, but I don't consider that answer adequate. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Blumenthal. | ||
| Senator Ernst. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Secretary, and thank you, Chairman, for being here. | ||
| Ms. McDonnell, I'm actually going to have a question for you. | ||
| So thank you very much for being here. | ||
| And I know that Iran is on our minds right now. | ||
| And Secretary, I'll just pose a very quick question to you. | ||
| October 7th, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel. | ||
| Who is the primary funder of Hamas? | ||
| Senator, it is Iran. | ||
| And who is the primary sponsor then that provides them with the weapons that they use to attack Israel? | ||
| Same answer, ma'am. | ||
| And maybe our public is not aware, but 43 Americans lost their lives on October 7th at the hands of Hamas, which is an Iran-backed terrorist organization. | ||
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Sexual Assault Briefing
00:05:13
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| 43 Americans. | ||
| We never talk about it, folks. | ||
| I heard nothing about this in the Biden administration. | ||
| So when there is a question about whether it's appropriate for America to be engaged in the Middle East in defending Americans that live and work abroad, I think there's our answer. | ||
| So thank you, Secretary. | ||
| I'm going to, I'll start with the Secretary, then I'll come to you, Ms. McDonnell. | ||
| Secretary Hegseth, I do want to thank you because we've had many discussions about this. | ||
| You have appointed Steve Erickson as the Executive Director of Force Resiliency, and he will oversee the Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, what we know as SAPRO. | ||
| And he will directly report to you on the issue of sexual assault within our military. | ||
| And you've been very responsive on this issue, and I commend you for that. | ||
| And I have already received my first briefing by Mr. Erickson. | ||
| So to continue building on this progress, I'm going to hold quarterly meetings with the SAPRO. | ||
| And we want to make sure that we continue the momentum that we are seeing within the department on that. | ||
| And Secretary Hegseth, from your vantage point, what positive trends are you seeing out of SAPRO? | ||
| Well, first of all, Senator, I want to thank you and other members of this committee for the work you've done on that issue. | ||
| And I think in large part, and you'll see this in this budget, we continue to fund the programs which have seen efficacy. | ||
| And so I think a lot of these were newer programs, new initiatives, new emphasis put in place that we have simply sought to maintain and accelerate. | ||
| And you see that in this budget. | ||
| And thankfully, we've seen this year sexual assault numbers decrease. | ||
| One is too many, as we've said before, but a decrease is a good trend to see. | ||
| We want to continue that. | ||
| Wonderful. | ||
| And we'll continue working with the department on that. | ||
| And an amendment that I am going to propose for this year's NDAA would require quarterly briefings from the SAPRO from members of Congress, just as they do with suicide prevention. | ||
| So we'll continue working on that. | ||
| I also would love to touch upon a number of other issues I've worked as far when it comes to fiscal sanity within the department. | ||
| I can submit those for the record because I do want to give Ms. McDonnell an opportunity. | ||
| Let's talk about an audit. | ||
| I love, so I love working with the comptrollers out there, but GAO released a report warning that the Department of Defense is unlikely to achieve a clean audit by 2028, citing long-standing financial management weaknesses. | ||
| And it's my understanding that a key issue in the Department's continued reliance on outdated business and feeder systems that lack internal controls continues to contribute to that. | ||
| So, to help address that, in the reconciliation package, we have $350 million that will be dedicated and directed toward improving audit outcomes across the department. | ||
| So, Ms. McDonnell, all to you. | ||
| Can you walk us through how the department intends to meet its statutory requirement of achieving that clean audit by 2028? | ||
| Thank you for the question, Senator, and thank you for your support in reconciliation for automation, AI, and business system replacement to achieve the audit. | ||
| The first day we came in, that was one of the first topics the Secretary and I discussed. | ||
| And he actually just put out a memo with guidance for milestones each fiscal year that the Department is going to achieve to achieve the financial audit by 2028 or sooner, as he has challenged us to do. | ||
| The Marine Corps just passed their second clean audit opinion. | ||
| Two additional components have done the same recently. | ||
|
unidentified
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And within the next three years, under the Secretary's guidance, the remainder of the Department will achieve the clean audit opinion. | |
| Well, outstanding. | ||
| We really appreciate that. | ||
| Thank you, everyone, for your service to our great nation. | ||
| Thank you very much, Senator Ernst. | ||
| Senator Hirono. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Senator Hicks, you've had a tough start. | ||
| At your confirmation hearing, my Democratic colleagues and I rightly questioned whether you had the requisite qualifications and experience to lead the DOD, the largest federal agency, especially given your check-out past, which included paying $50,000 in hush money to settle a sexual assault allegation against you and driving two veterans' organizations into the ground. | ||
|
Rejecting Dangerous Orders
00:10:16
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| After only months on the job, our concerns about you have proven true, as far as I'm concerned. | ||
| Instead of strengthening national security, you've turned the Pentagon into a dysfunctional mess. | ||
| You are jeopardizing military operations and service members' lives with your unprecedented action of texting classified military plans to anyone who might stroke your ego. | ||
| Leading the Department of Defense is more than just a PR campaign filled with photo ops. | ||
| While you pose for cameras, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine continues unabated. | ||
| Israel and Iran are also at war, in large part because your boss tore up a multilateral agreement former President Obama brokered with the UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia that curbed Iran's nuclear program and ambitions. | ||
| Meanwhile, China advances in the Pacific as this regime undermines and attacks our allies. | ||
| At a time when steady leadership is critical, we are confronted with crisis and instability. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, close to 5,000 Marines and National Guards have been deployed to LA without the request or consent of the California governor or the Los Angeles mayor, Bess. | ||
| Rather than calming the situation, this troop deployment is purposefully inflaming and escalates tensions. | ||
| You claim lethality is your top priority. | ||
| Do you plan to unleash this lethal force against U.S. citizens and civilians in LA and other cities? | ||
| Well, Senator, I would reject most of the characterization of that statement, including lethality against U.S. cities, when all of those National Guardsmen and Marines have conducted themselves with the utmost professionalism, defending our federal agents, Americans, who deserve to be able to do their job to support illegal immigrants after the previous administration. | ||
| I am not here to listen to your rhetorical responses. | ||
| I would like to have a professional response that I would expect from somebody who is the Secretary of Defense. | ||
| Millions of people peacefully demonstrated this weekend against the President acting like a king. | ||
| Given this regime's dangerous policy of mobilizing troops inside the U.S., the politicizing of the military is a legitimate concern. | ||
| So, given the dangerous policy of mobilizing troops inside the U.S., if ordered by the President, I'm going to ask you once again to shoot peaceful protesters in the legs, would you carry out such an order from the President? | ||
| Senator, as I've said before, of course, I reject the premise of your question and the characterization that I would be given or are given on orders. | ||
| It's all meant to attempt to smear the Commander-in-Chief. | ||
| Considering that the President in his first term actually ordered such a thing, it is not a premise that you can reject. | ||
| He can order it, do the same thing. | ||
| So, you're again, I think you would just follow what the President wants you to do. | ||
| Let's face it, it is not normal to call up our troops in this way, and there is active litigation against this deployment. | ||
| Will you follow a court's order regarding whether or not this deployment is legal? | ||
| If the court says this deployment of troops into our cities is not legal, would you follow that court's order? | ||
| It's pending in the courts, Senator. | ||
| Well, when the court decides, would you follow that court's order decision? | ||
| I don't believe district courts should be determining national security policy. | ||
| So, you will not be following that court. | ||
| And unless the president decides to appeal, there you have it. | ||
| So, I take it that you don't consider district court decisions to be legitimate. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Senator Sullivan. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, General, welcome. | ||
| I think you guys are doing a great job. | ||
| And I think this kind of line of questioning, it's amazing how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are all now focused on readiness, right? | ||
| I mean, I know my colleague from Hawaii chaired the Readiness Subcommittee. | ||
| I think we had two hearings in four years, right? | ||
| So, I appreciate your focus on readiness, lethality, deterrence. | ||
| Ms. Secretary, thank you also for your focus on Indo-PACOM. | ||
| Your speech and attendance at the Shangri-La dialogue was really outstanding. | ||
| And, General, I'm glad you were there as well. | ||
| I appreciate your direct answer to the chairman on following the laws directed by the budget reconciliation bill, which hopefully we're going to get over the goal line. | ||
| It'll be great for our military. | ||
| It's important that all your subordinates get that message as well. | ||
| Sure, they will. | ||
| General, thank you for your visit to Alaska, the most strategic place in the world. | ||
| Ms. Secretary, I'd love to have you up there soon. | ||
| As a matter of fact, for your staff, take a look at August 16, 18. | ||
| That's going to be the overlap of two large-scale exercises in Alaska, Northern Edge, Arctic Edge. | ||
| I believe the Indo-Paycom Commander, Northcom Commander, will likely be there around that time. | ||
| Would love to have you there, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| So, take a look at that date. | ||
| General, do you have any quick takeaways from your Alaska visit? | ||
| Sir, thanks for hosting me up there on my way to Shangri-Law. | ||
| It was great to see all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines on the northern flank getting after it. | ||
| It reminded me of the criticality of that part of our country and the importance of taking power projection up there. | ||
| And I know the services are all looking at that. | ||
| So thank you for having me. | ||
| Everybody appreciated your visit, so thanks again. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I really appreciate your focus on reestablishing deterrence. | ||
| By the way, it's really hard to do once you've lost it. | ||
| This has been particularly true with regard to Iran. | ||
| Let me give you my view on how tough that has been. | ||
| You know, the Quds force, led by Suleimane, killed and wounded thousands of U.S. service members when they were providing EFP to the Iraqi Shia militias, while John Kerry was palling around with the Iranian foreign minister, Zarif, on the JCPOA stuff. | ||
| General, you might remember one of your great predecessors, General Dunford, in a hearing before this committee said we had completely lost deterrence. | ||
| That the Iranians thought they could kill American service members anytime they wanted, and they ended up killing over 600 and wounding over 2,000 with no consequences. | ||
| That was General Dunford telling this committee. | ||
| We regained deterrence under President Trump's first term with the Maxim Pressure Campaign and, in particular, killing Suleimani. | ||
| Biden came in, appeasement of Iran was the order of the day, appeasement of Iran's proxy was the order of the day, and we lost deterrence again. | ||
| So much so that not only did he unleash the proxies, the Iranians, and fund them, but it was public knowledge that Iran was trying to assassinate senior U.S. officials, including Mike Pompeo and President Trump. | ||
| Talk about losing deterrence. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, Iran's military and leadership is in complete disarray right now because of the bold actions by Israel. | ||
| Is this an opportunity now to once again, like we did in the first term of the Trump administration, reestablish deterrence against this terrorist regime by making sure one way or the other they never have the capacity to enrich or produce a nuclear bomb, a goal that President Trump has repeatedly emphasized? | ||
| And again, I thank you for focusing on reestablishing deterrence. | ||
| It's critical, and you're right. | ||
| It's difficult to reestablish it. | ||
| If we lost it, which we did under the Biden administration, we know right now that Tehran understands exactly what the President is saying. | ||
| He said 60 days. | ||
| The world can believe it, and the world cannot believe it. | ||
| He said 60 days. | ||
| They had an opportunity to make a deal. | ||
| They should have made a deal. | ||
| President Trump's word means something. | ||
| The world understands that. | ||
| And at the Defense Department, our job is to stand ready and prepared with options, and that's precisely what we're doing. | ||
| So, is this an opportunity now to reestablish deterrence the way it was done in the first administration? | ||
| Senator, I think we already have, in many ways, in this environment, reestablished deterrence. | ||
| The question is in the coming days exactly what direction that goes. | ||
| Finally, Golden Dome, we look forward to working with you. | ||
| It was good to see you at the Oval Office. | ||
| We have a great opportunity here. | ||
| Presidential leadership, your leadership, budget reconciliation bill, $25 billion down payment. | ||
| Senator Kramer and I will be introducing legislation with Senator Sheehy on this next week to firmly entrench our strategy. | ||
| We've been working closely with DOD on Golden Dome in the law, and we look forward to continuing to work with you on that. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Sullivan. | ||
| Senator Kane. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, earlier this month, you announced a plan to change the name of three Virginia military bases to restore the names of Confederate-era generals on those bases. | ||
|
Honoring Forgotten Heroes
00:06:08
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| You researched to find brave American soldiers with the same last names, Lee, Hill, and Pickett, who had not fought for the Confederacy and declared that those Confederate adjacent names would be restored. | ||
| The problem is that you had to strip away the names of four amazing people that the Pentagon and local communities had chosen to honor at the Virginia bases. | ||
| Van Barfoot, he was a Mississippi native, Mr. Chair, who came to Fort Pickett in the early 40s to train for war. | ||
| He fought all over Europe in World War II. | ||
| He won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery. | ||
| Leading his platoon in southern Italy, he killed 10 of the enemy, captured 17 more, and escorted two wounded Americans 1,700 yards to safety under enemy fire. | ||
| Stayed in the Army for another 34 years, seeing action in both the Korean and the Vietnam Wars, and being assigned as the Army liaison to the Virginia National Guard at Fort Pickett. | ||
| Long after he retired, he maintained his tie to the fort and to the Virginia National Guard. | ||
| I was at the naming ceremony where this base to which he had devoted much of his life was named in his honor. | ||
| His family was there and they were so proud. | ||
| Arthur Gregg served in the Army for more than 30 years, first African American to reach the rank of brigadier general, first to reach the rank of lieutenant general, began as an enlisted, eventually decided to become a commissioned officer, went to Fort Lee for quartermaster training, quickly rose through the ranks as an instructor, even though he was not allowed to go to the officers club because of the color of his skin. | ||
| He finished his career in 1979 as the director of all Army logistics operations around the world. | ||
| He stayed near Fort Lee in retirement, raised his family there, and was a continuous beloved presence until his death last summer at 96. | ||
| He was actually at the renaming ceremony with his family in 2022 at this place that meant so much to him. | ||
| Charity Adams. | ||
| Charity Adams was an Army officer during World War II, the first African-American woman allowed to join the WACS. | ||
| She was the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a unique battalion composed primarily of African-American women making sure that American GIs in Europe got their mail during World War II. | ||
| Our colleagues Jackie Rosen and Jerry Moran successfully passed a bill in 2022 giving the 688 the Congressional Gold Medal. | ||
| Charity Adams was the highest-ranking African American woman in the military at the end of World War II. | ||
| Her family was at the dedication of Fort Greg Adams, named in honor of these two trail-blazing logistics leaders. | ||
| They were so proud. | ||
| Finally, Mary Walker, the only woman ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. | ||
| She graduated from Syracuse Medical School in 1855. | ||
| She tried to join the Union Army as a surgeon, was turned away because she was a woman. | ||
| But the need was so great, she eventually got hired in a military hospital in Washington and then was deployed as an Army surgeon with the Army of the Cumberland and the 52nd Ohio Infantry, becoming the first female surgeon in the U.S. Army. | ||
| She served all over Virginia, including the place where the base is now named after her. | ||
| She frequently crossed battle lines to treat civilians and even treated Confederate soldiers. | ||
| She was captured a prisoner of war in Richmond until a prisoner relief president Andrew Johnson gave her the Congressional Medal of Honor after the Civil War. | ||
| Why did you decide that these four patriots were not worthy enough to have their names on a base? | ||
| Well, Senator, as you know, this was never about the names of the bases they were renamed to. | ||
| So you don't challenge the worthy bases, restoring all bases to their original names. | ||
| The Confederate name. | ||
| I'm not about erasing the case. | ||
| Okay, you don't care about their military record. | ||
| You wanted to restore the Confederate names. | ||
| When you called the Gregg family to tell them that their dad's name was no longer going to be on the base, what was their reaction? | ||
| Senator, the Army notified them of that. | ||
| You didn't call any of the families, and I've spoken with the families, and the families were called by the press. | ||
| That's how they learned about this. | ||
| They learned about it from the press. | ||
| You didn't call the Barfoot family, the Gregg family, and you didn't call the Adams family. | ||
| I told the families I'd ask you about this today. | ||
| In fact, two of General Gregg's granddaughters, Avery and Sidney, are right here in the audience, and I want to ask you this as I close. | ||
| While you announced that these brave men and women's names would be stripped from the Virginia bases, no orders to that effect have been received by the base commanders. | ||
| In light of the patriotic service of Van Barfoot, Arthur Gregg, Charity Adams, and Mary Walker, I'd like to ask you simply not to issue the orders changing the names of these Virginia bases. | ||
| These families, my Commonwealth, are very proud of these heroes, very satisfied with these names, and ask you not to change them. | ||
| Will you honor these exemplary patriots and keep their worthy names in places on the bases they loved and where they served? | ||
| Well, Senator, we very much thank and appreciate them for their service, and we'll find ways to recognize them. | ||
| But the orders will soon be going to those bases to change the names back to the original name that never should have been changed. | ||
| But you have the power to not send those orders. | ||
| They haven't gone out yet, correct? | ||
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| Your time has expired. | ||
| Senator Kramer. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, for being here, for your service. | ||
| I want to go back to something that Senator Hirono mentioned in her questioning. | ||
| She credited the Obama administration, along with some other allies, with curbing Iran's nuclear capabilities. | ||
| As I recall, it licensed their aspirations. | ||
| And serious problem, we're still living with some of that. | ||
| And by the way, when it comes to deterrence, and I appreciate you making this point, and I agree with my colleague from Alaska, Senator Sullivan, on this. | ||
|
Why Not a Transparent Defense Budget?
00:15:47
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| Deterrence is definitely made up of weapons, but it is more of a reputation than it is a capability. | ||
| The capability is only good if you have earned the reputation. | ||
| With that in mind, and speaking of Iran and current situation, maybe, General, I could ask you this. | ||
| If Furdo was destroyed, demolished, if all of the nuclear capabilities that Iran has today were wiped out, would the war be shortened or lengthened? | ||
| Realizing that's not the only factor, of course. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| And of course, I can't split that hair given the complexities of the war that's ongoing there. | ||
| So I'd rather not comment on one particular part. | ||
| You know, the Israelis are, as reported in the open source press, are making great progress. | ||
| So I think I'll just leave it at that center. | ||
| And I understand and appreciate that. | ||
| Can you then highlight for me, as we talk about deterrence and reputation, I'm thinking, sitting here thinking about the air superiority that Israel has accomplished over Iran. | ||
| I'd like to have you speak to that and then speak perhaps to the lack of air superiority that Russia's had over Ukraine and the difference in those two wars. | ||
| And my point being, how important is air superiority in the current fights and in our future fights? | ||
| Well, sir, we could spend hours talking about the advocacy of air power. | ||
| I think the freedom of maneuver that it creates is a great example of that. | ||
| If you look at the two theaters right now with the Israeli Air Force striking at will at this point over Ron juxtaposed with the challenges that we're having with a frozen forward line of troops in Europe is a great case study of it. | ||
| You know, the great thinkers, air power thinkers, are looking at the advancement in technologies from both theaters, the advancement of first-person view drones and things like that. | ||
| And I think folks are going to have to think clearly about what does the future of air superiority look like and how does it evolve to make sure that we're protecting those essential teammates that are on the ground fighting in order to prevent frozen flats, forward lines of troops in the future? | ||
|
unidentified
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I appreciate that. | |
| Secretary Hagseth, there's been some discussion, certainly in your opening statements and then with a couple of the questions related to base defense. | ||
| And this would be something both of you could speak to, but I'd like to start with you, Secretary. | ||
| Obviously, we've seen some pretty spectacular displays of the ability to go deep, covertly deep, within the enemy's territory and take out some pretty significant assets, both in Russia and in Iran. | ||
| A lot of us fear that we're vulnerable as well. | ||
| You spoke very briefly, a reference, I think, in response to one of Senator Gillibrand's questions about the importance of policy. | ||
| So when we talk about the United States itself and our bases here in the country, policy is a bigger challenge than weapons, to be honest. | ||
| But what about responsibility? | ||
| In other words, I think there's, to me, there's some confusion over who's, is there a service, is there a particular institution that's responsible for base security and base defense, or is it up to the individual services to protect their own bases? | ||
|
unidentified
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Can you help straighten that out for me? | |
| Senator, you're right to ask the question. | ||
| We met on this very topic two days ago because you're right. | ||
| We've already made initial efforts, but I liken it to the effort that was made around IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it couldn't be a service-only response. | ||
| It needed to be across the joint force. | ||
| It needed to be immediate. | ||
| And the capabilities had to be prepared to adapt in real time to adjustments the enemy is making. | ||
| And you saw that in things that could in counter-IED technology. | ||
| We need the same type of effort in counter-UAS, not just forward-deployed, because right now you do it with what you have, but also at home, considering the authority. | ||
| So that is something the department is doing in real time. | ||
| If you have a second, I guess that's it. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm out of time. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much, Senator Kramer. | ||
| Senator King. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I'm somewhat puzzled. | ||
| I grew up in Virginia, where Robert E. Lee was revered. | ||
| I think when I was a kid, his birthday was a school holiday. | ||
| But as I grew older and learned more about American history, I learned that he fit the classic definition of a traitor. | ||
| He took up arms against his country. | ||
| He broke his oath as a member of the United States Army, which he took upon entering his career at West Point. | ||
| Why are you going through these incredible gymnastics finding current soldiers or other soldiers to rename? | ||
| And you slipped a minute ago. | ||
| You said we're returning these bases to their original names. | ||
| Robert E. Lee, leading general of the Confederacy, Pickett, the other names. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| I don't understand what the motivation is to rename bases for people who took up arms against their country on behalf of slavery. | ||
| What possible motivation can there be for this? | ||
| Who is telling you to do this? | ||
| Who is urging you to do this? | ||
| Senator, the veterans and service members across the country who have deployed from Fort Bragg or Fort Benning or Fort Hood or Fort Pickett, there's a legacy. | ||
| There's a connection to those bases and to those places, to what they trained for there, what they did for, and what they came home back to. | ||
| That matters to them. | ||
| Ask enough of them, as I do, all the time, before and later. | ||
| And we recognize the service of those who were put into the replacement. | ||
| No one's disputing that. | ||
| I would never dispute that. | ||
| What we're looking at is erasing history, erasing names, erasing base names that service members are tied to. | ||
| Talk to people that serve at Bragg. | ||
| Ask people that serve at Fort Bragg or Fort Benning if they like the fact that the names have been returned. | ||
| And to a man and to a woman, they will tell you, thank God we're back to Fort Bragg, and thank God we're fact. | ||
| And thankfully, because so many men and women in this country have served, there's a Benning and a Bragg and a picket and a hood that has a Silver Star or a Medal of Honor that we could rename the base to because of the limits of what Congress allowed us to do. | ||
| So this is something we've been proud to do, something that's important for the morale of the Army, and those communities appreciate that we've returned it back to what it was instead of trying to play this game of erasing names. | ||
| We're not erasing history, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| We're recognizing history and recognizing that mistakes have been made in this country. | ||
| The greatest of all was the Civil War, where people took up arms against their country on behalf of the institution of slavery. | ||
| And to continue the practice of recognizing those people and honoring them by the naming of these bases is, I believe, an insult to the people of the United States. | ||
| Let me talk about the budget. | ||
| I don't understand why the budget is coming to us in two pieces. | ||
| Why not give us an honest base budget instead of putting a piece of it in reconciliation? | ||
| As I understand it, OMB is saying we're going to have a flat defense budget for the next four or five years. | ||
| Are we planning reconciliation every year from now on? | ||
| Why not give us an honest budget telling us what your priorities are, and then we can consider it? | ||
| This committee always works in a bipartisan basis on a defense budget. | ||
| We all want to see some increases in the defense budget, and yet you're giving us this fake, here's a piece of the budget, here's another. | ||
| You're cutting in the base budget, you're cutting shipbuilding in half and saying, well, we're going to make it up in reconciliation. | ||
| Are we going to have reconciliation every year? | ||
| Which basically, by the way, puts a significant part, 10 or 15 percent of the defense budget, in an wholly partisan decision-making process, whereas in the history of this committee, it's always been bipartisan. | ||
| Why are we doing it this way? | ||
| Senator, from our view, that budget number 961 meets the requirements and threats that we face. | ||
| That's not the number. | ||
| The number is 892.6. | ||
| You're getting reconciliation. | ||
| That's my whole point. | ||
| Why not give us a base budget of 961 or whatever the right number is, what you consider the right number, and then we can operate and make our decisions. | ||
| Why do it in this bifurcated way that really is fooling the American people about what the defense budget is? | ||
| We're not trying to fool anybody, sir. | ||
| It's two bills, one budget. | ||
| I'm an expert working with OMB. | ||
|
unidentified
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Why is that? | |
| And that's very comfortable. | ||
| Why is it the number of 961? | ||
| Why not? | ||
| Why don't you give us a straight-up budget for the Defense Department? | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| Senator, this is a straight-up budget for the Defense Department, and it's a 13 percent increase over what Joe Biden is. | ||
| This is a two-part defense budget. | ||
| Part of it is in reconciliation instead of in the budget that's being presented to this committee. | ||
| This committee only has a partial review of the budget. | ||
| I don't understand why we can't have an honest, straightforward budget instead of this son of OCO that you're putting over on us. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Senator Scott. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| I want to thank each of you for being here, and I want to thank you for your dedication to the country, each of you. | ||
| So, Secretary, so you talked a little bit in your opening statement about China. | ||
| So, this committee, we've basically outlawed the use of Chinese drones by our government and our military. | ||
| We have the ability now going forward that we won't even license them in this country. | ||
| Can you just talk about the importance of making sure that our military, we don't have Chinese products, whether it's drones, we don't buy Chinese drugs for our military, we don't allow China to buy farmland close to our military bases. | ||
| We don't allow them to be involved in our electrical grid, bring in despicable foods into our commissaries. | ||
| Can you talk about the importance of that when they have a government that wants to destroy everybody in this room's way of life? | ||
| You're correct in what you're describing, Senator. | ||
| We need to get smarter, faster. | ||
| And that's the kind of urgency that we feel in the Defense Department. | ||
| There's been a lot of talk about prioritization and pivoting and recognizing the size and scale and scope of the Chinese threat. | ||
| And then there's doing everything possible inside your decision cycle to include how you posture, how you procure, how you plan to ensure that it's not reliant in any way. | ||
| You don't have Achilles' heels in any part of the process, whether it's critical munitions or it's critical minerals or it's any number of our weapon systems. | ||
| I mean, you've heard the President say, Golden Dome, his big signature priority for the defending of the homeland, will be American-made because we can't have systems like that dependent on what the Chinese could do about it later on. | ||
| So, we completely agree with you, and myself and the Deputy Secretary are, that's kind of an A number one for us, is in making sure that what we source is sustainable. | ||
| So, if Communist China continues to build up their economy, do you think they'll continue to invest in their military? | ||
| Yes, sir, and I think a lot of that spending is commingled. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And do you believe that if the American public knew the risk of China and what you think about every day, that they would buy fewer Chinese products? | ||
| Sure, sir, it's our job to think about that every day. | ||
| If a lot of the information we saw were to be made public, there would probably be more urgency, yes, sir. | ||
| Do you think that we ought to be allowing Chinese companies to be able to support either the economy of China so they can build up a military or companies that actually work with the Chinese military? | ||
| Do you think they ought to be able to sell stocks in America? | ||
| Senator, that's not really my lane, but I would say that the President is focused, especially through trade, on right-sizing a lot of those dynamics and making sure that American companies, American industries are protected and brought back to the United States. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, whether it's Americans buying products that help China build their economy so they can build a military to try to defeat us, or whether it's buying Chinese drones or drugs or allowing them to buy farmland, you would recommend to the American public that we wake up and stop doing these things. | ||
| Generally speaking, Senator, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Senator Warren. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| So President Trump has deployed the National Guard and then the U.S. Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of state and local officials, saying that the troops are needed to support immigration detention operations that are being carried out by ICE. | ||
| On Sunday night, the President threatened to deploy ICE agents to other cities around the country that he sees as, quote, the core of the Democrat power center, end quote, specifically mentioning Chicago and New York. | ||
| Secretary Hegseth, if the President wanted to deploy Marines to Chicago and New York City like he did in Los Angeles, would you carry out that order even if the local governors and mayors objected? | ||
| Well, Senator, because Governor Newsom was unwilling to address protecting federal law enforcement agents in Los Angeles, President Trump had all the authorities in the Defense Department happily supported defending our ICE agents in the conduct of their job. | ||
| They have the right as Americans to be able to do their job without being attacked by mobs. | ||
| I am. | ||
| And we will protect them in that process. | ||
| And if other states needed it, we would provide that. | ||
| I know that you heard my question. | ||
| So you would be willing to send troops if the president ordered it to Chicago and New York City? | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Well, thankfully, New York City, unlike California, unlike Gavin Newsom, is willing to step up and address the issue with the local law enforcement. | ||
| I will take that as a yes. | ||
| How about if the president says he wants to send troops to 15 cities? | ||
| Would you be willing to do that? | ||
| Senator, I don't accept your hypothetical because it's not a real question. | ||
| That's the question. | ||
| You're the Secretary of Defense. | ||
| Would you send troops to 15 cities if the President said do it? | ||
| Would you do it? | ||
|
Holding Leaders Accountable
00:15:32
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| 15 cities. | ||
| Again, Senator, it's a complete hypothetical lacking any context at all. | ||
| You're the Secretary. | ||
| And I refuse to box myself in based on questioning on a hypothetical. | ||
| You're here asking for a trillion dollars, and I want to know how you're going to spend it. | ||
| And so my question is: if Donald Trump tells you to send troops to 15 American cities, are you going to spend the money and send the troops? | ||
| Thankfully, we're spending money on securing our southern border a way the previous administration abandoned and allowed 21 million illegals to enter our country. | ||
| Defending our homeland is a real serious priority under this administration, and we're doing it. | ||
| I understand the question about defense. | ||
| Secretary Hegset, about 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines have been sent to LA. | ||
| Is there a number of troops deployed to American cities over the objections of governors and mayors at which you would be concerned that we are undermining our national defense? | ||
| Senator, we've spent two decades guarding other people's borders. | ||
| We think at the Defense Department, it's about time we shore up ours. | ||
| So that's my question. | ||
| Is there a number at which sending those troops to Los Angeles or Chicago or New York starts to undermine our ability to defend ourselves around the globe? | ||
| Is there a number? | ||
| Senator, we look at capabilities and readiness around the globe all the time, and we're quite satisfied with our capabilities to defend the homeland, and we'll provide more if and when it's necessary. | ||
| So you are satisfied with our capabilities. | ||
| Let me just ask, have you actually done the analysis and figured out how many troops you can deploy domestically before you start to undermine readiness around the world? | ||
| Have you done that analysis? | ||
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| Then would you let the rest of us in on it? | ||
| We are the Senate Armed Services Committee and you're here to ask for a trillion dollars. | ||
| What's the number? | ||
| We've got contingencies and plans for any number of capabilities should governors be unable, as Gavin Newsom has been, to actually secure his own federal agents in their cities. | ||
| How many troops can you deploy domestically before you start to cut into our readiness internationally? | ||
| As I said, previous administrations deployed our National Guard all around the globe in numbers far beyond what we were capable of supporting. | ||
| So limited contingencies inside the United States to protect federal law enforcement is doable. | ||
| If the Supreme Court orders you to remove troops from American city streets, will you do so? | ||
| Can you repeat the question, please? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| If Supreme Court orders you to remove troops from American cities, will you do so? | ||
| As I've said, Senator, I don't believe district courts should determine national security policy, but if the Supreme Court rules on a topic, we will abide by that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| You know, during her press conference last week, Secretary Noam said, we are staying here to liberate the city from its mayor and its governor, people who were elected by a majority of voters. | ||
| Secretary Hegseth is saying he is ready to deploy more troops and won't tell us what the implications are for our national defense. | ||
| This is un-American and it makes us unsafe. | ||
| I wish our Republican colleagues would speak up. | ||
| The time of the senator has expired. | ||
| Senator Tubberville. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thanks for being here today. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, thanks for looking out for the law enforcement and the millions of people in California that still love this country and want this country to survive and not the radicals that wave non-American flags, protest in the streets, tear things down. | ||
| It is ridiculous. | ||
| And thank you for doing what you're doing, you and President Trump. | ||
| This is getting out of hand. | ||
| Chairman of the Personnel Committee, thanks for your recruiting. | ||
| You're doing great. | ||
| Keep looking out after the quality of life. | ||
| Please do that. | ||
| We've done research after research. | ||
| We did give a raise. | ||
| We want to continue to give raises. | ||
| These first-year staffers in this building make tens of thousands of dollars more than first-year military personnel. | ||
| That's not right. | ||
| We need to change that. | ||
| It's an all-volunteer army, and thank you for working towards that. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, China's kicking her butt in AI. | ||
| They can build something in a year that takes us three or four years to build. | ||
| The budget provides for increases in AI investment of $250 million. | ||
| Is that adequate for us to catch up with China? | ||
| Senator, we are very aware of the accelerant that is AI and that it is the next chapter, the next sphere of where advantages will be gained. | ||
| And we are making the necessary investments, we believe, in this budget to stay there. | ||
| We're also working with private industry in the United States, who is thankfully at this point isn't getting their butt kicked yet by China, and I think presents an opportunity for us to work with them to press the advantage. | ||
| So we're looking for private partners as well to enhance our capabilities across the DOD. | ||
| You have to know your problems and where you're at before you can go forward. | ||
| And hopefully we're understanding that. | ||
| Obviously, we've got a lot of problems that's going on. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, your opening remarks mentioned the force-wide review of military standards. | ||
| What's the status of that review? | ||
| It is ongoing and very close to fruition. | ||
| We've reviewed standards specifically on combat MOSs first to ensure that we haven't seen a reduction in pursuit of quotas or any other agendas. | ||
| So, standards are remaining moved back to where they were at their highest level, gender-neutral. | ||
| And then we're looking at overall fitness standards, overall grooming standards, overall basic standards across our formations that we believe have slipped, certainly under the previous administration, but over decades. | ||
| But we're being very careful about it, too. | ||
| We don't want to make big changes that are widesweeping that have unintended consequences. | ||
| So, we're looking service by service, but also trying to simplify and clarify as much as possible high standards, clear standards that set us apart. | ||
| Thanks for your help in putting me on the Air Force Board of Visitors, a military academy, and look forward to going out soon. | ||
| It is very important we understand we do have problems in the Air Force Academy, and we're going to get those straightened out one way or another. | ||
| So, thanks for you and President Trump putting me on that board of visitors. | ||
| General Kane, the last few years we've seen major efforts to refocus our services for future fights. | ||
| Marine Corps force design and the Army's Transformation Initiative are major changes to the Joint Force. | ||
| Can you describe the Joint Staff's level of involvement in these efforts? | ||
| Sir, thanks for the question. | ||
| As the services carefully consider what they need to look like, one of my primary jobs is a global integrator, and so I look at all of these capabilities as well as capacities. | ||
| And then, through a series of formal products that we deliver to the Secretary, have a chance to give the Secretary my views on this. | ||
| I appreciate the leadership of both of those services, all of the services, and the combatant commanders to identify what the fight of the future looks like and what the force mix of the future needs to look like. | ||
| So, we're deeply involved in all that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Just this right up my alley here. | ||
| One important aspect of recruiting is how our services are represented in elite sports. | ||
| We have made progress here, but we still have to work and work some things out. | ||
| But, West Point this year, they had a young man that was drafted to play baseball in the past, times when President Trump was in. | ||
| He allowed them to go, do their thing in baseball, then come back and fulfill their service. | ||
| But we are disallowing a young man at West Point to go to Major League Baseball. | ||
| Could you look in that, Mr. Secretary? | ||
| Coach, we will review that. | ||
| Yes, thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator Peters. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| General Kane, both before and during your confirmation hearing, we discussed your commitment to duty and to adhering to the Constitution as well as your oath of office. | ||
| And I certainly appreciated your reassurance that you will remain, quote, a nonpartisan leader through and through, unquote, with one of your top priorities being maintaining the independence of the U.S. military. | ||
| Along with remaining apolitical, I'm sure you will agree that fostering a stable, mission-focused environment is essential to leading the Department of Defense. | ||
| So, my question for you, sir, is: can you please share with this committee and the American people what your approach to leadership as chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff is? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| It's certainly the job is one to understand the global set of challenges, integrate the options that must be considered, and then to present those options to the President. | ||
| And I've always taken a servant leadership approach throughout my career based on my oath of office and the Constitution and my commission. | ||
| And as a nonpartisan leader, you reiterate that. | ||
| Always. | ||
| Yeah, I reiterate that. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| And as a former Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, I certainly agree with that and agree with your answers and your commitment to the men and women in uniform. | ||
| Secretary Hekseth, your approach to leadership, I believe, stands in direct conflict with the ideas that we just discussed with General Kaine. | ||
| And in a time of great chaos and uncertainty in the world, I'm extremely concerned that your many shortcomings could have potentially life-threatening consequences for American service members. | ||
| In your confirmation hearing, I expressed my deep reservations about your qualifications to run the DOD. | ||
| I also made it clear that no board of directors in the world would hire someone with so little experience to run a large business, much less the Department of Defense, where American lives are on the line regularly. | ||
| For this reason, in addition to some concerns we had about character, I ultimately opposed your nomination. | ||
| And unfortunately, my reservations have become reality. | ||
| I know my colleagues have touched on some of these issues, but to briefly summarize, you have failed to set the example to set the example or lead from the front, as you'd like to say. | ||
| And this includes prompting a leadership and oversight vacuum at the department by firing qualified uniform leaders without cause, creating loyalty tests and leak investigations that have led to five of your senior advisors resigning or being fired, sharing classified military details on an unsecure app during operations in Yemen that included unauthorized individuals on at least two separate occasions, | ||
| and revoking the DOD personal protection detail for both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and the former Chairman of Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, putting their safety at risk while they are still under threat from Iran. | ||
| We have seen time and time again how your conduct, lack of personal responsibility, are harming readiness, reputation, and professionalism of our military. | ||
| At a time where Israel and Iran are in open conflict and our adversaries in Russia and China will exploit any weaknesses, unfortunately, my worst fears about your leadership shortfalls, unfortunately, have been realized. | ||
| Secretary Esketh, I firmly believe that accountability from leadership is vital in all sectors, not just in the military. | ||
| And demonstrating to your subordinates that everyone plays by the same rules helps to build trust and open communications within your team. | ||
| And those two things are extremely important. | ||
| And I know that you share my desire to ensure that we're holding our senior leaders accountable for actions. | ||
| And during your nomination hearing, you stated, quote, accountability is coming because everybody in this room knows if you are a rifleman and you lose your rifle, they are throwing the book at you, end of quote. | ||
| You also said that leadership has been unwilling to take accountability. | ||
| And I couldn't agree more on how important accountability is. | ||
| As we all know, at the request of this committee, the Department of Defense Inspector General launched an investigation into your use of Signal, an unclassified commercially available messaging application to discuss information pertaining military actions in Yemen. | ||
| So given your focus on accountability, how will you demonstrate this accountability to the men and women in the U.S. military if the Inspector General finds that you improperly disclosed information? | ||
| That assessment is pending at this time. | ||
| That is a hypothetical question. | ||
| But the gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| I think your answer is clear. | ||
| You are not going to be held accountable. | ||
| Thank you very much, Senator Peters. | ||
| Senator Mullen. | ||
| Talk about accountability. | ||
| I wonder who was held accountable for the disastrous withdrawal out of Afghanistan, where 13 soldiers died and we left thousands of Americans behind underneath Secretary Austin's lead. | ||
| Did one person get held accountable during that time? | ||
| I don't know of anybody that got held accountable for Afghanistan withdrawal. | ||
| But let's talk about that. | ||
| Let's talk about the turmoil to which my colleagues on the other side of the dais wants to talk about. | ||
| Let's talk about that turmoil. | ||
| Underneath Secretary Austin, who was a general, by the way, you had the lowest morale measured in our military history. | ||
| You had retention, absolutely disastrous. | ||
| You had recruitments that wasn't even meeting lowered standards that you guys lowered. | ||
| But let me see the contrast. | ||
| Now, we have the highest morale that's been measured in decades in the military. | ||
| We have recruiting numbers that are exceeding expectations that we've had. | ||
| We have our enemies that fear us, once again, and our allies that love us because they can trust us. | ||
| But that's not the narrative, Secretary Heckseth, that our Democrat colleagues want to draw. | ||
| But how short-minded is your memory? | ||
| It was just a few months ago that you were supporting a commander-in-chief that you guys were covering up for or flat-out lying about. | ||
|
Absence of Leadership
00:09:17
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| Who was in charge? | ||
| And that was a commander-in-chief. | ||
| Oh, but let's not talk about that. | ||
| Instead, let's just point fingers at something that fits a narrative. | ||
| You want to talk about war powers or the fact that during our reposturing in the Middle East against Iran, which would have never taken place if our colleagues on the other side would have held the administration accountable while they were giving billions of dollars back to Iran and knowing good and well during the briefings that they were actually trying to develop a nuclear weapon. | ||
| But we turned a blind eye to that. | ||
| And now the mess that was created by the Biden administration, this administration, or the Trump administration, and the leadership of Secretary Heckseth is simply trying to clean up. | ||
| But forget about the past. | ||
| Let's talk about this. | ||
| Oh, let's talk about reposturing, by the way. | ||
| And was it Secretary of the Navy Del Toro that came to us and said that he was fighting the largest naval battle since World War II? | ||
| Did anybody in this dias authorize that? | ||
| That was his words who sat right there where Secretary Heckseth was, and I laughed. | ||
| And I said, I didn't think the Houthis had a Navy, so why are we fighting a naval battle there? | ||
| And did you guys complain about it? | ||
| Did you guys say one thing about it? | ||
| Nope. | ||
| We just sat there because, hey, it didn't fit your narrative, but this one does. | ||
| And then you want to start talking about the National Guard and the Marines. | ||
| Didn't General Eisenhower, I'm sorry, President Eisenhower deploy troops or federalized troops in Arkansas in 1957 and also deploy the 101st Airborne because the governor then refused to protect civil rights and personal property? | ||
| Yep. | ||
| What about President Kennedy in 62 and 63 that also did it because Mississippi and Alabama refused to do the same thing? | ||
| And so since the governor at that time refused to protect citizens and the property, he federalized the National Guard. | ||
| Oh, let's think about 65 too because LBJ did the exact same thing. | ||
| But that's history. | ||
| But yet it's extremely important to the context of what you guys are claiming to be done here. | ||
| But that doesn't fit the narrative that you guys want to put out there. | ||
| History is history. | ||
| Look back at it if you want to or not. | ||
| But keep in mind, every time you're pointing fingers here, you got three fingers pointing back at a shoe. | ||
| Because the previous administration, you guys 100% turned a blind eye to and did nothing to hold them accountable. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| So don't sit up here on the dice and pretend like you're trying to hold an administration accountable now because you didn't for four years. | ||
| You literally covered up for a commander-in-chief that was absent. | ||
| Absent-minded and absent leadership. | ||
| And you guys did absolutely nothing. | ||
| Even your left-lean media is saying it was the worst cover-up possibly in political history. | ||
| Yet nothing from you guys. | ||
| You all should be ashamed of yourself. | ||
| Literally, you should be ashamed of yourself. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Mullen. | ||
| Senator Rosen. | ||
| I yield my time to Senator Duckworth. | ||
| Senator Duckworth. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| In response to my colleague from Oklahoma, I believe the Secretary of Defense has just responded last week and admitted that the $1 billion mission that he led against the Houthis who do not have a Navy has not restored the transit of U.S. flag commercials vessels through the Red Sea and in fact has resulted in the loss of two F-18 hornets to the tune of $60 million apiece, | ||
| as well as I believe the last count was seven Reaper drones to the tune of another $200 million. | ||
| You are blowing through money like my fellow cadets and I did in our First Liberty after basic camp. | ||
| Luckily, I didn't end up with a questionable tattoo. | ||
| Your failures, Mr. Secretary, since you've taken office has been staggering. | ||
| You sent classified operational information over signal to chest thump in front of your wife, who, by the way, has no security clearance, risking service member lives in the process. | ||
| You blew the $1 billion fight against the Houthis, whom, again, as my colleague says, has no Navy, and yet you lost all of those aircraft. | ||
| You've created such a hostile command environment that no one wants to serve as your chief of staff or work with you in other senior DOD leadership roles. | ||
| But what we should all be talking about more than all of this is that you have an unjustified un-American misuse of the military in American cities, pulling resources and attention away from core missions to the detriment of the country, the warfighters, and yes, the warfighting that you claim to love. | ||
| I don't know if this is because you are too inexperienced and incompetent to understand the real threats facing our country, or if it's because you are just an unqualified yes man who can't tell the president how to keep Americans safe. | ||
| You are focusing on renaming bases for Confederate generals. | ||
| You said just now to Senator King that to a man and to a woman, we would rather be associated with the old Confederate names. | ||
| Well, I am one of those women. | ||
| I served at Fort Rucker, Alabama, a base that was named for a traitor who took arms against the United States of America, led troops to kill Americans. | ||
| It was renamed for Mike Novicelle, a Medal of Honor recipient, who in his citation for the Medal of Honor includes that he saved 29 American lives to include hovering backwards in a helicopter towards an enemy bunker where a wounded American was laying and saved that and saved that person, including after being taken fire himself. | ||
| I know a little something about what it takes to fly a helicopter when you've been hit by enemy fire. | ||
| That was heroic. | ||
| I'd rather be associated with Mike Novicelle than a failed Confederate traitor. | ||
| I don't know whether you are inexperienced or too incompetent, but I wonder when you will actually focus on our nation's warfighting mission. | ||
| We know that California is just a deliberate, systematic, political, and dangerous campaign led by you. | ||
| We should not be using our military to be a cops against Americans. | ||
| General Kane, as chairman, a key part of your job is to coordinate military planning across the joint force. | ||
| Is the department currently incorporating into any military plans expanding the use of the reserve forces to include the National Guard or active duty troops to support domestic law enforcement, including in other locations in the United States? | ||
| Senator, you know, we carefully. | ||
| Well, it's not really a yes or no question, Madam Senator. | ||
| We plan all kinds of different things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it is. | |
| I'm not aware of anything, but the reason why I'm answering is the tags may be looking at something that I'm not aware of. | ||
| What are you doing at your level? | ||
| You're not aware of that being happening at your level? | ||
| Because we know that on his first day, President Trump directed U.S. Northern Command to revise its unified command plan to add new planning requirements to combat, and I quote, criminal activities. | ||
| A series of follow-up executive orders continue to redirect DOD priorities to supporting domestic law enforcement, including one in April that tells DOD, and I quote, use national security assets for law and order. | ||
| In other words, do law enforcement's job. | ||
| I'd like to enter these executive orders into the record, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Is there objection? | ||
| Without objection, so. | ||
| Mr. Hegseth, you say you are focused on warfighting and warriors. | ||
| These are your words. | ||
| Yet you are diverting untold DOD resources and attention to the fundamentally non-military mission of domestic policing. | ||
| Across the country, we have qualified police officers who are trained for that mission. | ||
| They know those streets better than the Marines who deploy to Los Angeles, who normally focus on the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| And you recently approved 700 more troops in three other states to do admin and logistics works for ICE. | ||
| You say all of this is valuable training, but I would much rather have our troops do tough, realistic training relevant to high-end combat. | ||
| Instead of typing in spreadsheets for ICE, they should be conducting live-fire maneuver exercises. | ||
| Instead of patrolling American neighborhoods and standing in front of federal buildings, they should be rehearsing call for fire missions. | ||
| We have local police who can stand in front of those federal buildings. | ||
| And the list of distractions goes on. | ||
| You are encouraging the DOD workforce to go work for DHS in increasing numbers. | ||
| You're pulling the military away from facing foreign enemies who literally say things like death to America. | ||
| And you're putting troops with weapons aimed at Americans. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, let the military get back to its real job. | ||
| Stop forcing them to do DHSs. | ||
| And if you want to be the DHS Secretary, maybe you can apply for that job when you're fired from this one due to your incompetence. | ||
| The senator's time has expired. | ||
| Senator Budd. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here. | ||
|
Air Dominance and Special Operations
00:05:31
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| I think you all are doing a great job. | ||
| And the proof is in the pudding. | ||
| If you look at morale, you look at recruiting, you look at deterrence. | ||
| Incredible performance compared to the last administration. | ||
| So thank you all for your work and in short order as well. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, while I was overseas and time zones away this past weekend, I was able to watch the parade, even though it was on the size of a phone screen. | ||
| But I just wanted to catch a quick glimpse at it since it was controversial from the other side. | ||
| And I'll tell you what, I stayed up until 2 a.m. | ||
| I could not turn it off because it wasn't about you, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| It wasn't about our president. | ||
| It was about the men and women that don't get recognized each and every day. | ||
| And I could just see them grinning underneath their helmets and their battle dress uniforms, smiling from ear to ear, being recognized, whether it's on TV or by those of us in elected office that were present or the folks that should have stood up to support them. | ||
| So thank you for that. | ||
| And again, back to the morale that we're seeing in the recruiting numbers. | ||
| I think it will go even higher as a result of that. | ||
| So I appreciate what you did. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I want to echo what my colleague Senator Kramer said a few moments ago about air dominance. | ||
| And in previous years, Air Force officials have recommended purchasing at least 72 fighters a year, which would be reachable by maximizing F-35 and then the F-15EX production lines. | ||
| And I applaud the President's decision to proceed with the F-47, but I understand that it's going to take a while before that's developed and fielded. | ||
| And I'm interested in maintaining a strong level of production of other advanced fighters in the interim. | ||
| So what can you tell us about the future of the F-15EX in particular while we await the arrival of the F-47? | ||
| And Mr. Secretary, that'd be for you. | ||
| And Mr. Chairman, you've got experience, significant experience as a fighter pilot. | ||
| So if you'd look care to weigh in as well. | ||
| To your point, Senator, I would defer the balance of my air superiority time to the Chairman. | ||
| But I would note that the budget does have a substantial increase on F-15EX, recognizing its capabilities and the bridging function that particular aircraft provides us. | ||
| And all of this with an eye toward existing fights and future fights, but it certainly does make an investment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chairman? | |
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Thanks for the question. | ||
| And, you know, you could use the current Israeli efforts as a case study in air dominance and air superiority. | ||
| And if you look at harder problems in Iran, you start to see the importance of having the mix of things like F-47, EX, and any other future capabilities that are considered. | ||
| So we have to stay up on the TAC air, up on the TACAR step, and I appreciate your leadership and interest in this, sir, as we move forward. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Switching gears a bit, Mr. Secretary, our Special Operations Forces play a crucial role in preventing and then winning armed conflict. | ||
| However, the previous administration proposed cuts to soft billets in the programs. | ||
| So how does the President's budget request impact the size, structure, and posture of our special operations forces for 2026? | ||
| Well, sir, what you will not see is cuts to soft billets, especially recognizing not just the last 25 years, but even the op-tempo of the last four to six years and the recognition that those are forces that are used often, mobilized often. | ||
| There's a stress and strain on that. | ||
| And so investments both in personnel but also training and capabilities is front and center. | ||
| Thank you for that. | ||
| Last year, I led an NDAA provision that mandates that all future annual defense planning guidance include specifics with respect to the size, structure, posture, and priorities for SOF. | ||
| So I want to make clear the importance of this directive. | ||
| And the committee was due a report back on March 1st on this component of the defense planning guidance. | ||
| But since that date has come and gone, I'll ask now, will you, Mr. Secretary, commit to seeing this requirement through and providing an update to this committee on its progress? | ||
| Yes, Senator, we'll get that to you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to ask briefly about munitions. | ||
| Mr. General Kane, how do you see the rate of munitions usage in Ukraine in the Middle East, particularly our ground-based interceptors and air-to-air missiles, influencing this budget request and future budget requests? | ||
| Well, Senator, we're always mindful of the consumption rate. | ||
| One of the great case stories of the fight in the Middle East is the advancement of use of rockets, laser rockets, to target one-way attack drones, which I know the committee helped push, and that's helping to save some of our critical air-to-air munitions. | ||
| And I can circle back with you on the other matters offline, sir. | ||
| Please do. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
Addressing Near-Peer Threats
00:15:55
|
||
| Senator Kelly, Senator Rosen yielded her time to Senator Duckworth, who was scheduled to be last. | ||
| Do you think we ought to go ahead and let Senator Rosen ask questions right now? | ||
| 100%. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Senator Rosen, you are recognized. | ||
| I thought I would just create a stir down there. | ||
| No. | ||
| I thank you to my seatmates on both sides. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| We take care of each other. | ||
| And again, thank you, Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reid, for holding this hearing, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| We have a short amount of time, so I'm just going to ask a few simple questions, and I would just appreciate if for some of them you would just answer yes or no. | ||
| And so, Secretary Hegset, would you agree that every senior official in the Department of Defense must reflect the values and conduct that our service members must uphold and our citizens expect? | ||
| Senator, we want to uphold the highest possible standards. | ||
| I'll take that for a yes. | ||
| So would you also agree then that anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have no place in our government or military? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| They should not. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| So would you also agree that anyone who has posted, and I'm going to quote, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories lifted right out of a neo-Nazi playbook, end quote, shouldn't be anywhere near a position of power. | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| Since I don't believe the characterization of many officials in the news media, I would need to see precisely what's being characterized. | ||
| But generally, but generally, would you not say that if you thought something was coming out of a neo-Nazi playbook, it doesn't have any place in our Department of Defense. | ||
| Now, Secretary Hegsteth, the quote that I just read you was referencing Ms. Kingsley Wilson, the DOD press secretary. | ||
| It's a direct quote from her, who my Republican colleagues on this committee have also expressed alarm over due to her comments. | ||
| In fact, one colleague said, and I'm going to quote again, obviously I don't agree with her comments. | ||
| I trust the Pentagon will address this, end quote. | ||
| However, in the months since, not only have you not addressed these anti-Semitic comments, you have promoted Ms. Wilson. | ||
| This seems to be at odds, honestly, with President Trump's commitment, very public commitment, to combat anti-Semitism, which you just said you two agreed with. | ||
| So, Secretary Hegset, given the rise in anti-Semitic violence, hate crimes in our nation, and to show that the Trump administration, the Trump administration, your administration, does have a zero tolerance policy for anti-Semitism, will you dismiss Ms. Kingsley from her role as the U.S. military spokesperson today? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| Again, that's why I referenced the context and characterization. | ||
| I've worked directly with her. | ||
| She does a fantastic job, and there's any suggestion that I or her or others are party to anti-Semitism is a mischaracterization, attempting to win political points. | ||
| Senator, you're attempting to win political points on the backs of mischaracterizing the statements of a member of the Trump administration. | ||
| And I'm not going to stand up. | ||
| You are not a serious person. | ||
| You are not serious about rooting out fighting anti-Semitism within the ranks of our DOD. | ||
| It's despicable. | ||
| You ought to be ashamed of yourself. | ||
| I'm going to move on to General Hawke. | ||
| The sudden inexplicable dismissal of General Hawke. | ||
| He serves both director of the National Security Agency, commander of U.S. Cybercom, it's deeply concerning, raises significant questions about the decision-making process, its potential consequences. | ||
| Public reports indicate that the removal of General Hawke, who has served his country proudly, has been influenced by social media influencer, an influencer, a personality on social media, Laura Loomer, spreads conspiracy theories. | ||
| She's been denounced even by Republicans. | ||
| And the idea is that any leaders within our agencies responsible for our nation's security, somebody would be dismissed based on the advice of a social media influencer is alarming to say the least. | ||
| It's surely not how we should be running our military. | ||
| So were you consulted regarding General Hawkston's dismissal, yes or no? | ||
| Well, Senator, I would not advise believing everything you read in the media. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Were you? | |
| And I'm consulted on every single decision. | ||
| I'm the decision maker for the Department, and we all serve at the pleasure of the President. | ||
| And we have the prerogative to make those decisions. | ||
| What was your recommendation? | ||
| Did you personally approve Mr. Hawk's dismissal? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| Anyone coming or going at the Defense Department, especially at that level, would ultimately be a decision made by me, and I stand behind him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't believe him. | |
| Did you personally relieve him? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| Anyone at that level who is relieved would be relieved by the Secretary of Defense. | ||
| Was there a specific justification for General Hawk's missile? | ||
| Was there a specific justification for General Hawk's dismissal? | ||
| Ma'am, we all serve at the pleasure of the President, and the President deserves the type of commanders and advisors that he thinks will best be able to do it. | ||
| Did you discuss General Hawk's dismissal with Laura Loomer prior to his removal? | ||
| I don't discuss who I talk about anything with, but ultimately this is my decision, and he serves at the pleasure of the President, and that's why he's no longer there. | ||
| So do you believe it's appropriate for any social media personality to influence personnel decisions in your department, yes or no? | ||
| I believe your time is up, Senator. | ||
| Oh, it is not up to you to tell me when my time is up. | ||
| Well, the time is up. | ||
| And I am going to say, Mr. Secretary, you are either feckless or complicit. | ||
| You are not in control of your department. | ||
| Yours is unserious. | ||
| It is shocking. | ||
| You are not combating anti-Semitism within your ranks. | ||
| It is a dangerous and pivotal time in our nation's history. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| And I don't appreciate the smirk, sir. | ||
| You are the Secretary of Defense. | ||
| The time of the gentlelady has expired. | ||
| Senator Kelly. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I want to talk about the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system. | ||
| There's a request to spend $25 billion in this year alone. | ||
| First of all, is this system designed to intercept a full salvo attack? | ||
| Senator, it's a multi-layer system that would include different types of salvos. | ||
| Obviously, it's not just rogue nation. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, it's meant to, yes, it's not meant to be just one nation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It could be utilized against Russia or China, full salvo. | |
| So what kind of reliability are you aiming to build into the system? | ||
| Are we looking for something like four nines on intercept success? | ||
| 99.99 percent reliability? | ||
| Obviously, you seek the highest possible. | ||
| You begin with what you have and integrating those C2 networks and sensors, building up capabilities that are existing with an eye toward future capabilities that can come online as quickly as possible, not just ground-based but space-based. | ||
| So against future capability, too. | ||
| So do you believe that we can build a system that can intercept all incoming threats? | ||
| You think we could build that system? | ||
| This is a very hard physics problem. | ||
| You would know as well as anybody, sir, how difficult this problem is, and that's why we put our best people on it. | ||
| We think the American people deserve it. | ||
| So let me tell you what I think we are facing. | ||
| We talked about hundreds of ICBMs launched simultaneously, varying trajectories, MERS, so multiple reentry vehicles, thousands of decoys, hypersonic glide vehicles, all at once. | ||
| And considering what the future threat might be, it might even be more complicated than that. | ||
| And you are proposing spending not just $25 billion, but upwards of, I think CBO estimated this at at least half a trillion, other estimates, a trillion dollars. | ||
| I am all for having a system that would work. | ||
| I am not sure that the physics can get there on this. | ||
| It is incredibly complicated. | ||
| So I want to get to another issue that you are facing here. | ||
| How much of the staff of the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation did you cut? | ||
| After collaboration, sir, with the service departments, the joint staff and others, we identified that as a place where there were redundancies and multiple additional layers that were in the city of the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'll tell you what you cut. | |
| You cut it, as I was going to say. | ||
| Most of it. | ||
| Most of it. | ||
| And was your decision to cut more than half of the Pentagon's testing and evaluation office staff driven in part by concerns about the Office's plan to oversee testing of Golden Dome? | ||
| The concerns were not specific to Golden Dome, sir. | ||
| It was years and years of delays, unnecessarily based on redundancies in the decision-making process that the services, COCOMs, and the joint staff, together with OSD, identified as a log jam. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Secretary, to get the reliability we would need. | |
| You need something that's at four nines, 99.99% reliability with all these challenges. | ||
| And you cut the staff of the people who are going to make sure this thing works before we make it operational, before we give it to the warfighters. | ||
| You have to go back and take a look at this. | ||
| But I also strongly encourage you to put together some, before we spend $25 billion or $175 billion or $563 billion or $1 trillion, put together a group of people to figure out if the physics will work. | ||
| You could go down a road here and spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayer money, get to the end, and we have a system that is not functional. | ||
| That very well could happen. | ||
| And you are doing this just because the President, and I understand your role as the Secretary of Defense, you have to execute what the President says. | ||
| But this idea might not be fully baked. | ||
| And you can get in front of it now and figure out and find out if you put the right physicists on this. | ||
| And I am not saying go to the big defense contractors. | ||
| Going to scientists, and I know there is a questionable relationship with this administration and scientists, but go to some scientists, figure out what we would have to do to build a system and then make smart decisions before we spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. | ||
| Senator, we are doing that, leveraging existing technologies and not premising the project on aspirational technologies, what we can actually do and what we can do. | ||
| Well, $25 billion in the first year is a lot of money. | ||
| That's more than just figuring out if we have the ability to build a system that can handle a full salvo threat, hypersonic glide vehicles, MERS, thousands of decoys. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Kelly. | ||
| Senator Sheehy. | ||
| For General Kane, curious your thoughts. | ||
| Now you are in the chair officially. | ||
| China is building ships about 230 times faster than we do. | ||
| Our ability to scale our maritime industrial base has been the subject of much discussion. | ||
| And my biggest concern is we could give the Navy unlimited funds right now, and even that wouldn't be able to fix the problem we have within the existing paradigm. | ||
| And we have to rethink how we acquire, deploy, and maintain our Navy. | ||
| As we approach potentially a new CNO taking the seat here, what are we doing at the department level? | ||
| to explore alternative ways like leasing a Navy, like leasing, giving private industry the incentive to build stable requirements towards stable requirements with consistent engineering specs so that they can build to these requirements, let private industry take some risk and extend themselves on this so we can benefit from the ability and the agility of private industry to solve problems quickly. | ||
| Well, sir, thanks for your question. | ||
| I share your concerns about how fast we're building ships. | ||
| I'm encouraged, though, by the leadership that the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, the current acting CNO have all been leaning into this, as well as the other parts of the department, acquisition and sustainment, and research and engineering. | ||
| You know, I've not heard yet on a leasing discussion. | ||
| As you know, as a former aviation business owner, there's ops leases and things like that that offer capability at different models. | ||
| There's been some experience of that on the Hill before. | ||
| I'm thinking back to Senator McCain had some strong views on leasing in a prior life, but I would defer that conversation to our OSD colleagues, sir, who would drive that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Well, I think we have to think outside the box, and that's true on all defense acquisition programs, and I welcome either of your thoughts as well. | ||
| You know, Senator Warren and I actually have recently partnered on an initiative that is praising what Secretary Driscoll has done at the Army side to expand the flexibility of the services to have more alternative pathways. | ||
| I go back to our MRAP program about 15 years ago, a program which saved my life and the lives of many other servicemen I'm sure in this room as well. | ||
| So finding alternative ways to acquire things is really what we have to do now. | ||
| And if we continue to try to jam a turkey into the garbage disposal and just give more and more money to a process that frankly has been failing for decades, I think we need to try to fix the process first. | ||
| And I'd be curious as to either of your thoughts, open response as to what we can do immediately here to start reforming our defense acquisition paradigm so we can keep pace with it's not a near-peer threat with China. | ||
| They are a peer. | ||
| So it is a peer-to-peer threat. | ||
| How are we going to reform our industrial base to keep pace with it? | ||
| Sure, I think this could be a much longer conversation, which I'm happy to have with you. | ||
| I note that the lineup of leaders that we have in the Congress right now, here in this committee and the other side, the leaders in the department, the leaders in industry, it feels like we have the team now who will actually move the ball, grab a hold of that entrepreneurial spirit that America is so well known for, and get after it. | ||
| We cannot, you know, I'm mindful of the work that's been done before, we cannot continue to move on the same trajectory, and we must get after this. | ||
| We owe it to the joint force to be properly armed at scale with the right capabilities so that they can win and come home. | ||
| And so I'd love to partner with you on that, as I know our OSD colleagues would as well. | ||
| Well, and the speed at which we've solved our recruiting challenges, hopefully we can do the same thing with the ability to make bullets, bombs, artillery shells, planes and ships, because we owe it to the 17, 18, 19-year-old kids who are going to be fighting these systems on the front line to make sure they have enough of them to replace attrition and also that those systems are as good as they can be when they need them. | ||
| Thanks, sir. | ||
| Thanks for your time today. | ||
| Senator Sheehy and General, I would love to be part of that longer conversation about that issue. | ||
|
Apolitical Military Concerns
00:14:40
|
||
| Thank you, Senator Sheehy. | ||
| Senator Slotkin. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I said in your hearing when you had your confirmation hearing that my biggest concern with you at the helm was the potential use of the military in ways that contradict the Constitution or that taint what I hope we all want, which is an apolitical military. | ||
| And when I asked you about whether you would accept an order that was actually given to your predecessor, Secretary Esper, Trump SecDef, to deploy active duty troops against unarmed protesters and to, in Secretary Esper's words, shoot at them, shoot at their legs, you said this was all theoretical. | ||
| Here we are, a few months later, you've deployed 4,700 troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of the governor. | ||
| And my colleague across the aisle was right. | ||
| It is the first time since 1965 that we have deployed guard troops without the permission of the governor. | ||
| In all the instances he laid out, the president had sent in the military to protect protesters, not against the protesters. | ||
| So you may dismiss it, but I feel like this is a fundamental issue of American democracy. | ||
| If you love your country and you want an apolitical military, then it should be the last resort, not the first resort in our country to use them. | ||
| So to get to the non-theoretical, have you authorized the uniformed military to detain or arrest protesters in Los Angeles? | ||
| Senator, I would just start by saying you're not a protester if you're throwing concrete. | ||
| Arrest those officers. | ||
| Throw them in the jail. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| But what you're doing is something different. | ||
| Everyone knows this is a political decision, right? | ||
| So we don't trust that you're using the best interests of the military, certainly, and of democracy on top of that. | ||
| So have you given the order? | ||
| That's all I want to know. | ||
| It's not theoretical. | ||
| For the U.S. military, military, not law enforcement, they can arrest all day long. | ||
| That's the job. | ||
| Do they have the ability, the uniformed military, to arrest and detain protesters currently today? | ||
| It's a yes or no thing. | ||
| Authority. | ||
| It's sort of amusing the extent to which the speculation is out there. | ||
| These troops are given very clear orders. | ||
| And what is the order? | ||
| Then list it out for us. | ||
| Be a man. | ||
| List it out. | ||
| Did you authorize them to detain or arrest? | ||
| That is a fundamental issue of democracy. | ||
| I'm not trying to be a snot here. | ||
| I'm just trying to get the actual, did you authorize them to do that? | ||
| All of these orders and what they're sent there to do are public. | ||
| They are there. | ||
| So say it. | ||
| So say it. | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd like to. | |
| Please. | ||
| Yes or no. | ||
| As I've said time and time again through interruption, they're there to protect law enforcement. | ||
| Do they have the ability to arrest? | ||
| They're trying to do their job deporting illegals who were allowed in by the previous year. | ||
| So they cannot arrest and detain citizens of the United States, the uniformed military. | ||
| As we've stated, if necessary, in their own self-defense, they could temporarily detain and hand over to ICE because there's no arresting going on. | ||
| And you know this, but no political military of the U.S. military against members of the protest. | ||
| Have you authorized U.S. military cyber tools to investigate people participating in these protests? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| Certainly in no way that I'd be aware of. | ||
| Okay, that's good. | ||
| I love that answer. | ||
| That's great. | ||
| Have you given the order to be able to shoot at unarmed protesters in any way? | ||
| I'm just asking the question. | ||
| Don't laugh. | ||
| Like the whole country. | ||
| And by the way, my colleagues across the audience. | ||
| What evidence would you have that an order of Donald Trump giving that order to your predecessor, to a Republican Secretary of Defense, who I give a lot of credit to because he didn't accept the order? | ||
| He had more guts and balls than you because he said, I'm not going to send in the uniformed military to do something that I know in my gut isn't right. | ||
| He was asked to shoot at their legs. | ||
| He wrote that in his book. | ||
| That's not hearsay. | ||
| So you're poo-pooing of this. | ||
| It just shows you don't understand who we are as a country, who we are. | ||
| And all of my colleagues across the aisle, especially the ones that served, should want an apolitical military and not want citizens to be scared of their own military. | ||
| I love the military. | ||
| I served alongside my whole life, so I'm worried about you tainting it. | ||
| Have you given the order? | ||
| Have you given the order that they can use lethal force against honor? | ||
| I want the answer to be no. | ||
| Please tell me it's no. | ||
| Have you given the order? | ||
| Senator, I'd be careful what you read in books and believing it, except for the Bible. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh my God. | |
| So your former predecessor, I guess that's not enough for you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| On Iran, I don't think there's a debate. | ||
| There's like a cat fight going on in your own party about whether to go after Iran. | ||
| Have you commissioned any day after planning? | ||
| So any force protection, any use of ground troops in Iran, any cost assessments? | ||
| Because I don't think we doubt what we can do as a country in the attack. | ||
| It's the day after with Iraq and Afghanistan that so many of us have learned to be so deeply concerned about. | ||
| Have you authorized day after planning? | ||
| As I've said, we have plans for everything, Senator. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And I would also reiterate how we began that there will be a classified portion of this 15 minutes after we adjourn. | ||
| Senator Banks, you're recognized. | ||
| An apolitical military. | ||
| Secretary, wouldn't you say that in the last administration under Joe Biden, Secretary Austin, Mark Milley, we've never seen the military politicize in a way that it was over those four years? | ||
| Senator, I would say our mission has been to take the politics out of the military, take the ideology out of the military. | ||
| And as a result, you've seen the response of young Americans who have called it a bump at first. | ||
| I just want to correct that, Senator. | ||
| It's been a tsunami. | ||
| It's been a historic response of young Americans. | ||
| I want to unpack it. | ||
| I want to unpack this with you, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| Prior to President Trump's election, the military was struggling with the worst recruitment crisis in 50 years. | ||
| That all seemed to have changed overnight on one specific day. | ||
| And the chart shows it. | ||
| The Army doubled its recruitment from November of 2024 to the previous November. | ||
| The Navy, the same thing. | ||
| The Navy's recruitment skyrocketed 80% from November of 2024 to the previous year. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, what changed? | ||
| There was an election, Senator. | ||
| Why does that matter? | ||
| Because leadership matters, sir. | ||
| Belief in your country matters. | ||
| Having the back of your troops matters. | ||
| Setting a clear mission matters. | ||
| Ensuring that if troops are used, it's for a clear, defined mission. | ||
| It's funding them properly. | ||
| It's giving them the proper authorities to execute. | ||
| Americans watch what happens with their political and military leadership. | ||
| I mean, President Trump, they understand they have a commander-in-chief that has their back, that loves the country, that loves them. | ||
| Our job has been to reflect that through the department by getting rid of all the distractions, by enforcing the basics, by getting back to standards and readiness. | ||
| And as a result, we've seen a generation of young people stand up and say they want to serve under President Trump. | ||
| These numbers have steadily increased. | ||
| As you said, you called it a tsunami. | ||
| I call it the Trump bump because it did begin on one day, but every month since we've seen those recruitments for the Army and the Navy, especially the best Navy recruitment in 20 years, the best Army recruitment in 15 years. | ||
| How do we keep that up? | ||
| Well, sir, I think we keep that up by staying true to what we said we would do to those young Americans and their families. | ||
| I wrote a book before I started this process talking to a lot of vets and their families who are wondering whether they would recommend military service to the next generation. | ||
| I hear from them and others who say now we're willing to do that under this president's leadership. | ||
| Staying true to who we are, staying true to the basics, the Constitution, their core mission, keeping them ready, funding them and supplying them properly, and then having their back, truly, matters. | ||
| And I think by doing that and then emphasizing recruiting and the basics, I think we'll continue to be able to be on the right trajectory. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, I've never seen a Secretary of Defense that's so in tune with our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, and Marines as you. | ||
| You've gone out and you're visiting with them, you're talking to them every single day. | ||
| What kind of stories are you hearing, especially from our newest recruits? | ||
| What are they telling you? | ||
| What are they telling you specifically about why it matters? | ||
| I'll start with those that are re-enlisting or they've been in for a while who say it's all changed. | ||
| The entire environment's changed. | ||
| The reality has changed. | ||
| They feel the change. | ||
| They feel the idea that if I'm given a job to do, I'll be given everything necessary to do it, the authorities to do it. | ||
| I'm not being micromanaged. | ||
| I know that my commander will have my back. | ||
| And then the young people, it's just excitement about the possibility of serving under President Trump, of being a part of something greater than themselves, and knowing that in the White House they've got a commander who will defend their interests. | ||
| It's really about the, as I said, I mean, as my colleague was talking about, the apolitical military, I mean, the wokeness, the radical transgender movement, the abortion travel mandates, the way the last administration politicized the military. | ||
| There was a survey in 2023 that pointed this out. | ||
| And the Army released the survey in 2023 that claimed that young Americans' fear of discrimination drove away more recruits than wokeness. | ||
| And wokeness was a big indicator, too, in that survey. | ||
| Do you think those arguments still stand up today? | ||
| Senator, you make a great point. | ||
| Every American wants to be treated like an individual. | ||
| Not because they're black or white or male or female, rich or poor, or because of some calculation of what we need more of or need less of, but simply, can you rise to the challenge of this job, of service to your nation? | ||
| That challenge inspires young people, and that's what we've seen. | ||
| I think the Commander-in-Chief matters. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, you matter. | ||
| General, you matter. | ||
| Thank you for your leadership. | ||
| The facts speak for themselves. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Banks. | ||
| Is there objection to putting a representation of the chart in the record at this point? | ||
| Without objection, it'll be ordered. | ||
| Mr. May I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? | ||
| Senator Reed. | ||
| I note that the chart starts in November 23 and goes to November 24. | ||
| And President Biden was president through the entire period. | ||
| So you're suggesting that the significant ramp up took place immediately after the Election Day, which would have been 20 days of November 24. | ||
| That's exactly what I'm suggesting, Senator. | ||
| And the numbers speak for themselves. | ||
| Do you have any data to suggest that? | ||
| The General of the Army told me so. | ||
| And I'm happy to, if you ask for those numbers from the Army, you'll see the same dynamic that I have. | ||
| The election of Donald Trump serving as the The election of him and the indication to those recruits around the country that he's going to become the commander-in-chief actually mattered. | ||
| And those numbers have risen dramatically ever since election day. | ||
| There was no impact of the administration's activities over several years before that, and also through the period of November 23, which was encompassed the Biden administration. | ||
| It's funny you get a Trump bump while Biden is president of the United States. | ||
| So I'd be curious to see that day. | ||
| I think it's incredible as well, sir. | ||
| Unbelievable. | ||
| Might be a better word. | ||
| Are there further questions? | ||
| We're sort of now into the second round of questioning. | ||
| Without objection, we will close this portion. | ||
| And if our members and witnesses could join us in the Visitor Center SCIF in 15 minutes, we would appreciate it. | ||
| Until then, we are in recess. | ||
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| unanimous consent that the Committee ON THE Judiciary be discharged from further consideration, and the Senate now proceed to SRES 259. | ||
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The clerk will report. | |
| Senate Resolution 259, recognizing June 2nd, 2025, as the 39th anniversary of C-SPAN chronicling democracy in the Senate. | ||
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By a unanimous vote, the United States Senate passed a resolution honoring C-SPAN's four decades covering the Senate. | |
| The resolution thanked cable and satellite operators for providing C-SPAN as a public service to the country. | ||
| C-SPAN does not receive one penny of taxpayer dollars, is funded primarily from satellite and cable providers. | ||
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Congressional Directory 2025
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And called on all television providers, including streaming services, to deliver C-SPAN as well. | |
| We're at a different stage in our history, and a lot of people are seeing their news this way, so we need to expand it and make sure we're on all of those platforms, as well as the ones we already are on. | ||
| So thank you again to Senator Grassley for working with me to highlight C-SPAN's critical role. | ||
| And thanks to everyone who has had a hand in C-SPAN's success. | ||
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Looking to contact your members of Congress? | |
| Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory. | ||
| Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. | ||
| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress. | ||
| Contact information on congressional committees, the President's Cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. | ||
| The Congressional Directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C-SPAN's non-profit operations. | ||